The Bermuda Optimist Dinghy Association will stage the second and final series of trials in the Great Sound this weekend to select the island’s team to compete at this summer’s Optimist World Championship in Italy.

The top five sailors at the completion of the 16-race series will be invited to join Bermuda’s World Championship team.

The next four sailors in the rankings will be invited to represent the island at the Optimist European Championship in Estonia, providing one of them is of the opposite gender.

The first series of trials took place from February 22 to 23.

National Optimist boys’ champion Christian Ebbin holds a four-point advantage over Magnus Ringsted at the top of the leaderboard after six races and the first of two drops.

Another ten-points back in third is national Optimist girls’ champion Nicole Stovell followed by Rachael Betschart and Ava Adams, who presently occupy the remaining World Championship qualifying spots in fourth and fifth respectively.

Ebbin, Ringsted and Stovell are among four survivors from Bermuda’s team that competed at last year’s Optimist World Championship in Antigua taking part in the ongoing trials which also includes Laura Hupman.

Ebbin produced Bermuda’s best showing of eighth in a record fleet of 259 sailors, Ringsted finished 85th, Hupman in 106th followed by Stovell in 197th. Sebastian Kempe, the remaining member from last year’s team, who has since aged out of the class, finished eleventh.

Bermuda Olympic sailor Jesse Kirkland produced the island’s best showing to date of second at the 2003 Optimist World Championship in Spain.

The Optimist World Championship is scheduled to be held in Riva del Garda, Italy from July 1 to 11 while the Optimist European Championship will be held in Tallinn, Estonia from June 22 to 29.

Meanwhile, several of the sailors competing in this weekend’s trials including Ebbin, Ringsted, Hupman and Betschart had been scheduled to represent Bermuda at this month’s Optimist South American Championship in Argentina which were postponed because of the Covid-19 outbreak.