Spring POINT Score, Races 1 & 2

Mother nature pulled out a cracking day for the start of the 2025 Spring Pointscore Series on Saturday with blue skies, sunshine and a hint of a sea breeze on the cards. A magnificent spectacle on the world's most picturesque ILCA racetrack. With a forecast breeze from the east, the race crew set a course around 1240pm with the top mark about halfway between Shark Island and "Point Bethwaite", set nicely for what was (at the time) a true easterly.

However, on returning to the water after the briefing, the breeze had continued to shift to the northeast. A bit of quick thinking saw the marks reset, although the Etchell start line and gate was bang in the middle of where the wing mark should have otherwise been. Nonetheless, racing was underway at 2pm - a super effort from Stephen Reid and Wendall Wait on the RIB to move the marks and lay a pretty decent start line under time pressure!

In the Radials, Sylvie and Sara jumped out to a good lead, picking a couple of big shifts up the second work. After some neck-and-neck racing, Sara came out the victor. In the Standards, Healy similarly managed to open up a lead on the fleet, and took line honours.

The second race was underway after some problems with the sound signals - the Jazzman hooter wasn't working, and the air horn ran out of air with a minute to go before the start, leading to a general recall. Daryl Lawrence's "unplug it and plug it back in and jiggle it around a bit" advice for fixing the hooter on the Jazzman was amazingly effective.

For the Radials, Sara and Sylvie fought it out again with another big lead, this time with the honours going to Sylvie. In the Standards, Zander held the lead for a good part of the race, taking line honours in the end.

On adjusted time, Brendan Pollard took out the honours in both races in the Radial fleet, while Healy Ryan took the handicap honours in the Standards in the first race, and Peter D'Arcy King was victorious in the second.

Many thanks to the race team of Murray Stone, Richard Holstein, Stephen Reid and Wendall Wall.