"Like sailing in a washing machine" was how Zander Kirkland described conditions off Boca Chica yesterday for the fourth round of the Pan-Am Games sailing competition.

Kirkland, 20, is in eighth position out of 15 competitors after netting eighth and ninth place finishes.

Sunfish sailor Malcolm Smith, meanwhile, moved up to equal third after finishing fourth and third yesterday.

Only two points now separate Kirkland from his goal of seventh with four races to go, but then again only two points separate him from ninth as well.

"It could have been worse, it could have been better," said Kirkland. "It's still really close. It's real tight."

Describing the conditions, he said: "They were pretty much the same as they have been throughout - real choppy, real difficult, kind of like sailing in a washing machine.

"The water is coming from everywhere, the boat's getting moved around. It's tricky."

Kirkland said he was happy with his tactics, but perhaps needed to be a little less gung-ho when in a good position.

"I'm pretty happy. I'm really happy with my downwind speed and I think I have to give myself more credit for going downwind," he said. "But I think I am taking too many risks going upwind. I think I should just stay with everyone else and then just try and count on having a good downwind.

"In the second race I took too big a risk on the upwind when I could have just gone with everyone else and probably caught them up downwind."

Kirkland has set his sights on overhauling seventh-placed Johnny Bilbao of Venezuela, but must be wary of the chasing Miguel Aguerre of Uruguay.

"There's four more races and I think my speed is good enough, if I sail well, to get ahead but it's going to take good starts and good tactics and continued good downwind speed," he said. "But it's definitely do-able. It's also do-able for me to go back too because it's so tight. Four points between seventh and ninth."

As on Wednesday, Kirkland had another confrontation with Brazilian world champion and regatta leader Robert Scheidt.

Scheidt has yet to come anything other than first - even his drop was a one - but Kirkland has been showing he can be outmanoeuvred.

"Off the starting line I rolled over the top of him today," he said with the laugh of a young pretender. "We start in a line and he started downwind of me. I went over the top of him and took his wind. He had to tack out. We were going side by side for a while, but finally I just got the bow over. It was pretty funny."

Sunfish sailor Smith is now in joint third tied on 27 points with Raul Aguayo of the Dominican Republic who finished sixth and fifth yesterday. What's more only a point separates the pair of them from Diego Zimmermann of Peru who occupies the silver medal position.

Zimmermann finished seventh and eighth, while Smith's long-time adversary and regatta leader Eduardo Cordero of Venezuela kept up his solid display of sailing with a second and first. He has ten points, 16 clear of the chasing Zimmermann.

Two races are due to be held today, with the remaining two, to decide the medals, tomorrow.