Rockal Evans produced a battling display to remain firmly on course to finish in the top half of the fleet during the penultimate day of the Ronstan Australian International Finn Championships in Melbourne yesterday.

The Bermudian overcame poor starts and the shifty breezes on the waters of Port Phillip Bay to place thirteenth in the two races contested.

It was a hard-earned display, which left the 2020 Olympic hopeful in fourteenth among the 40-strong fleet boasting Olympic, European and world champions, with two races remaining in the ten-race series.

The race committee delayed the start of racing because of light and patchy breezes that eventually filled in.

The first race was contested in eight to ten knots and the second in 12 to 16, with the left side of the racecourse paying huge dividends on the upwind beats.

Giles Scott, the British Olympic champion and America’s Cup sailor, has a seven-point advantage at the top of the standings, where he has remained perched since the opening day of the regatta hosted by Black Rock Yacht Club.

Elsewhere Down Under yesterday, Campbell Patton started his campaign at the Australian Youth Championships presented by the Australian Maritime College in Tasmania.

The 17-year-old is competing in the Laser Radial class, where he ended the opening day in tenth among the 37-strong fleet.

Patton got off to a slow start after crossing the line in seventeenth in the first race, but came roaring back in the second with a solid third-place showing.

He is fresh off of an impressive showing at the Oceania and Australian Laser Championships that finished in Tasmania on Tuesday, placing fifth in his division and fifteenth among the 69-strong fleet, with five top-ten finishes.