Campbell Patton achieved his primary objective at the Laser Youth Easter Meeting regatta on Lake Garda, Italy, at the weekend.

The Bermudian was bidding to qualify for the Youth Sailing World Championships and he did just that after finishing fourth in an overall Laser Radial fleet of 124 and second in the boys’ under-19 age group.

“It’s an honour to be able to go and I’m excited to be able to represent Bermuda again,” Patton, who is studying in Sydney, Australia, said.

The Youth Sailing World Championships will be held in Gdynia, Poland, from July 13 to 20.

“I will continue to train in Sydney preparing for the biggest event of the year,” Patton said.

“This is my last year [of eligibility] and I hope to be on the podium at the Youth Sailing World Championships.”

Patton finished twelfth, his best showing to date, at the Youth Sailing World Championships held in Corpus Christi, Texas, last year.

He went into the final day of racing at the Laser Youth Easter Meeting regatta on Saturday keen to improve on his fourth position and secure a spot on the podium.

However, he was denied the opportunity to make further inroads as racing was postponed because of lack of wind.

“There was not enough wind to race so I had no chance to climb back up the leaderboard to a podium result,” he said.

Patton might have finished higher had it not been for misfortune in the second race of the qualifying series. He won the race comfortably, but was disqualified for being on the wrong side of the start line at the one-minute warning signal.

“In the second race, I got disqualified for a silly mistake before the start even though I won the race,” he said.

“The result [overall] is good, but I feel as though my performance could have yielded a better result because I know that without the disqualification I would have won the event.”

Meanwhile, competing at the regatta were Christian Ebbin and Magnus Ringsted in the Optimist Class.

Provisional results showed Ebbin in nineteenth and Ringsted 32nd among an overall fleet of almost 900 participants.