Bermuda’s four sailors struggled at the prestigious Princess Sofia Trophy regatta in Palma, Mallorca, on Wednesday.

Sebastian Kempe, in the Ilca 7, and Adriana Penruddocke, in the Ilca 6, had coped best in the opening two days of competition after qualifying for the gold fleet in their respective classes, but Kempe posted finishes of 55th and 51st in the opening two races as costly errors on the racecourse took their toll.

“Today was a frustrating day and little mistakes in the gold fleet are magnified by a lot,” said Kempe, who is 42nd among the overall 193-strong ILCA 7 fleet.

“With the shifty conditions that we had it was near impossible to keep things consistent. However, that being said, I’m still in this and I will continue to take each race at a time to soak as much experience out of this event as I can.”

Cambell Patton is competing in the silver fleet where finishes of nineteenth and second moved him up to 69th overall, while Smith is among the bronze fleet and finishes of second and twelfth on Wednesday move him up more than 30 places to 143rd overall.

England’s Michael Beckett leads fleet by ten points over nearest rival Jean Baptiste Bernaz of France.

Penruddocke expressed mixed feelings after arriving back on shore with finishes of 37th and 48th in the opening two gold fleet races in the ILCA 6 women’s class.

“Day one of gold fleet racing was quite challenging conditions with long oscillations,” she said.

You don’t know when the wind is going to come back but it was still a good day of learning for me personally.”

Penruddocke, who is 48th among the 116-strong fleet, got off to a good start in the first race and rounded the top mark in fourth before losing precious ground on the first downwind leg and second windward beat as costly errors came back to haunt.

“It’s unfortunate but that's what it is,“ she added.

The sailor got off to a poor start in the second race but managed to work her way back towards the top half of the fleet.

“A bit of a bad start and didn’t end up well at the top mark but I just kept chipping away and ended up with ten boats behind me at the finish,” Penruddocke said.

“I’m quite happy with today and looking forward to the next two days of races to see what else I can learn and if I can move up or just show my strengths in the gold fleet.”

Australian Mara Stransky tops the fleet on a tie-break over England’s Matilda Nicholls, who previously represented Bermuda in the Optimist dinghy class at international regattas.