Dick Cawse and the crew of his 60-footer Vanguard had five reasons to celebrate when they berthed at the Newcastle Cruising Yacht Club’s marina last evening.

Sailing in the CYCA’s final Ocean Pointscore race of the 2004-2005 season, from Sydney to Newcastle, Vanguard took line honours and first place on corrected time in both the IRC and PHS divisions of the shortened course ocean race.

More importantly, the wins gave Vanguard first place overall in both the IRC and PHS divisions of the Ocean Pointscore.

Designed by engineer Dick Cawse and naval architect David Lyons, the innovative Vanguard has had an excellent first season in ocean racing, winning five of the seven Ocean Pointscore Races on IRC handicaps and three on PHS handicaps.  She also finished second on line and IRC to Wild Oats in the Pittwater to Coffs Harbour Race.

Unfortunately for many of Vanguard’s competitors, the light and variable morning winds off the New South Wales Central Coast yesterday saw only eight of the 24 starters in the Ocean Pointscore complete the course to Newcastle, even though the CYCA did not start them until the fleet had motored to north of Broken Bay.

Vanguard took line honours at 5.28pm, some nine minutes ahead of the Volvo 60, Andrew Short Marine (Andrew Short), with Ron Ellis finishing third across the line in Future Shock.

On corrected times, Vanguard won the IRC division from Future Shock and Leslie Green’s Ginger and the PHS from Andrew Short Marine and Future Shock. 

In the Ocean Pointscore IRC division overall, Vanguard finished with 331 points from Georgia Express (Ian & Jean Guanaria) 316 points, Sommerbreeze (Hans Sommer) 316 points, Great XPectations (Rod Wills) 310 points, Don’t Blink (Michael Delaney) 307 points and Amante (Dennis Cooper) 291 points.

Vanguard took out the Ocean Points PHS division with 317 points from Great Expectations on 309, Don’t Blink (Michael Delaney) 303 points, Sommerbreeze (Hans Sommer) 299 and Georgia Express 297 points. – Peter Campbell