Penny Simmons is within striking distance of a seventh IOD World title.The Bermudian skipper scored a bullet and a second during yesterday’s penultimate day of the 2012 IOD World Championship to put more distance between himself and the chasing pack.He currently holds a eight-point lead over nearest rival Elliott Wislar (Long Island Fleet) with Bill Widnall/Matt Lindblad (Marblehead Fleet) a further five-points adrift in third.Teams will discard their worst score at the end of the series that has been reduced due to poor weather.Simmons got off to a sluggish start in yesterday’s first race after starting further down the line. But he managed to catch up with the lead bunch after playing the shifts on the favoured right hand side of the course.The Bermuda Sports Hall of Fame sailor was fourth on the final downwind run but gained two more places after rolling on top of Wislar and Charlie Van Voorhis (Fishers Island Fleet) right at the upwind finish line.“We ducked the stern of the two boats that were ahead of us and came back with a nice little lift and that was it we just squeezed in,” Simmons said.The next race was less eventful as the veteran sailor led every leg of the race despite getting off to another wobbly start.“Our start wasn’t that good but we got clear air pretty quickly,” Simmons said. “We tacked to the right and played the right wind shift to the windward mark and crossed the fleet three quarters up and after that it was just a case of playing the shifts throughout the race.”Rick Thompson (Chester, Nova Scotia Fleet), the only other local skipper in the fleet, climbed from 11th to ninth after posting identical scores of seventh in yesterday’s two race sailed in winds that peaked at just over 20 knots.“We sailed well but lost a couple of boats on the downwind legs, which was truly our fault,” he said. “But we were out soaring with the eagles instead of pecking with the pigeons.”Wislar and co-skippers Widnall and Lindblad remained in second and third.The team of Widnall/Lindblad won yesterday’s opening race and finished sixth in the second before increasing winds caused the race committee to postpone the third race.Wislar finished third in the opening race but snapped his mast in the second and was forced to retire.The two-time IOD World Champion lost his rigging in a collision with Long Island Sound Fleet stablemate Tim Heckscher on the second windward beat. Wislar was granted redress (3.80) by the race jury while Heckscher was tagged with a DNF (14th) after retiring from the race.Northeast Harbour II Fleet’s Fred Ford also endured drama on the high seas after becoming tangled with Van Voorhis at the top of the course in the first race. Ford was forced to retired with twisted jumpers and was granted redress (11.6) while Van Voorhis retired after finishing the race.Weather permitting, race officials plan to complete a seventh race during today’s final day of the regatta being hosted by the Bermuda IOD Fleet that is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year.