Putting aside the tragic loss of nephew Travis Smith, who became Bermuda?s sixth road fatality of the year less then 24 hours earlier, Stevie Dickinson continued his steady ascent on day four of the Arch Byte CII World Championship 2006 in the Great Sound yesterday.

Dickinson sailed consistently and moved two spots up the leaderboard from sixth to fourth to position himself well within reach of achieving a podium finish following today?s final two races.

?Today was very difficult for me to focus on what I was doing and not on the loss of my nephew,? he admitted afterwards.

?I think this (decision to sail) was good for me because it took me away and helped ease my mind a bit. And overall it feels okay even though I had to work hard to get back there.

?My main objective was to try and sail consistently and try to be up there with the front guys; trying to hold onto these young sailors that are sailing so quick. Now hopefully I can finish in the top three.

?But it was really, really tough for me out there today.?

Even tougher was Singapore?s Nicolas DeCruz who maintained pole position ? the first skipper to successfully defend an overnight lead over the course of 16 rounds of races.

DeCruz enhanced his own chances of success by scoring a bullet in yesterday?s third race to stretch his lead at the summit to six points over Bermuda?s Malcolm Smith.

Smith endured a miserable opening race yesterday, but exorcised the early demons and sailed conservatively for the remainder of the day to keep his hopes for glory alive heading into today?s final day of racing with the championship still wide open.

?I had a good start and went for about 200 yards and thought I could tack and get across the fleet, but there was one boat I didn?t quite get across. And I so I had to do a 720 (penalty turn) and that put me behind,? Smith explained.

Sailing on the port side, the 2003 Athlete of the Year failed to give way to a rival on the first beat of the first race and ended up swapping paint and incurring a penalty for the infringement.

?I just had to basically fight back in that race which was probably the only downside of the day for me,? he added. ?Outside of that I thought I sailed three solid races.

?However, the kid from Singapore (DeCruz) had another outstanding day and managed to put another three points between us going into the last race. So it?s still up in the air and we will see what happens.?

Yesterday also saw local skipper William Hutchings slip from third to fifth and Eleanor Gardener from eighth to tenth, some 76 points behind Singapore?s Elizabeth Yin who is now a clear favourite to replace Britain?s Hana Blore as women?s champion.

Blore moved up from 13th to 11th yesterday, but still well out of contention for top honours.

Singapore?s Jonathan Chew moved from fourth to third, and remarkably executed an exceptional recovery during yesterday?s third race after capsizing twice to finish fifth.

All participants also dropped their three worst finishes yesterday, with the exception of Canada?s Stephen Waldie who accumulated a third yellow flag in the opening race for a pumping infringement (flapping his sail) at the end of the first run and was disqualified.

Waldie is the second overseas skipper to have been disqualified this week, the other being Singapore?s Wilber Chang who was sent packing only three races into the international regatta contested for by 33 participants from four different continents