The big one

We look at this weekend's Endeavour Trophy and try to suss out the form

Helms and crews will be arriving at the Royal Corinthian Yacht Club in Burnham this Friday to get their hands on the Topper Xenon [read our review of the boat here], this year’s mount for the Endeavour Trophy that will be raced over Saturday and Sunday.

A key change to the event is with all 30 brand new boats being supplied by Topper and a team from the manufacturer and event sponsor Holt will be on hand for the three full days to ensure the smooth running of the fleet.

Topper have infact sold all the boats being raced at the weekend, with approximately half being taken away by their new owners once racing finishes on Sunday.

Twenty six entries are now confirmed, all national champions in their respective classes, with a couple more teams expected to enter in the last moments. This year’s winner will have no easy ride to the title and it is expected to be a very close competition.

Friday is a day of training on the water, with coaching on hand from Harvey Hilary and James Grant for those crews who are unused to the set up of the boat. The day has been sponsored by commercial training group TNG. Sailors will be keen to ensure they are familiar with all the equipment on their boat, practising manoeuvres and looking at their rig and sail tune alongside their competitors.

Racing proper gets underway on Saturday morning with the first start of the day planned for 10.30am. In all eight races are scheduled for the weekend and if past years are anything to go by it will be a hectic, demanding schedule. Each windward leeward race has a time limit of 45 minutes, the winner of the race is first across the line after this time - and those finishing after the winner are scored accordingly. Once five races are completed then a discard comes into play.

In past years the Race Committee, lead by Kim Allen, have always aimed for five races to be completed on the Saturday, meaning at least five hours on the water and nearly four hours of intense racing.

The time limit can be varied at the start of a race by the committee and this is a key feature of the Endeavour. Knowing where you are in the race, who to cover, who to attack, and how much time and distance you have left is key to victory.

The race area, on the river, is a challenge in itself and tidal changes through the day prevent the course becoming a one way track. Tidal conditions mean that the geography of the river will be important, with high tide in the afternoon of racing there will be no set form book over the course of the day. The river can also provide steep choppy water at certain times of the tide and this will provide a real test of the crews’ boat handling.

On Saturday night all the entrants will be entertained at the Royal Corinthian Clubhouse with a sit down dinner, with the famous trophy on display. Guest speaker for the evening is Keith Musto.

Musto, a perfect choice for the VIP slot, is an Olympic Silver Medallist in the Flying Dutchman from 1964 and in the nine years prior to this won five national championships in five different classes.

On paper the two favourite for the event will be defending champion Nick Craig who has this year won the RS400 Nationals, the Finn Nationals and the OK Worlds. He will be sailing with James Stewart this time and will be foregoing ‘home advantage’ with the RS400 being replaced by the Xenon.

The biggest name in the field is Britain’s Laser ace Paul Goodison. Goodison earnt his ticket by winning the Laser UK Nationals in July; in a fleet of 104 boats he walked away with a 10 point scoreline from seven counting races. It will be interesting to see just how he copes with being the name everyone will want to beat – and how he gets on in a double hander.

There are two youth teams that look to be a threat at the event, Huw Humphries and Max Todd (29er) and Matt Burge and Chris Evans (420). Humphries and Todd go into the event as current 29er National Champions and also finished a credible eighth at the 29er European Championship. The great amount of helm and crew co-ordination required to sail the tricky 29er means that this pair could end up finishing high up in the final placings.

Burge and Evans are perhaps a bit more of a wildcard for a top placing. The 420 National Champions again have an advantage of having sailed with one another regularly - so crew work should not be an issue here, although the downwind challenges of asymmetric sailing could prove to be an Achilles heel for the duo.

Graham Nelson (30), the GP14 National Champion could have a bit of a battle on his hands with the 420 boys. “We won the GP Nationals from Matt Burge,” Nelson explained. “He was actually a really close second - it all went down to the last race! It will be good to sail against them again. Matt had it all won but then counted the amount of laps wrong on the last race - which lost him the title. So I think he might be out for vengeance.”

Nelson and his crew Mike Senior have swapped around roles this year (following a GP14 Nationals title in 2004 too), with Senior handing over the tiller to Nelson.

“We are really looking forward to sailing the new boat,” said Nelson of the new Topper Xenon. “I am all in favour of that and I think that it is definitely something that needed doing. We are quite excited about that. When we did it before we really struggled trying to find a decent RS400 and we ended up borrowing a really old one from some guy at our club. We stood their in the dinghy park on the first day with the oldest boat there with knackered sails and there were people pulling new spinnakers out of bags and we just stood there thinking what is this all about?

That said Nelson still has Craig down as favourite to defend his Endeavour title.

With no RS400 representative signed up the RS flag is to be flown by RS200 National Champions Craig Burlton and Fiona Clark. The pair won the nationals ahead of last years Endeavour runner-up (and RS 200 representative) Lee Sydneham. The high standard of tactical racing in the 200 fleet combined with the Xenon perhaps being more suited to their weight means that they must be on the favourites list too.

It will be Chris Turner’s third time at the Endeavour, but this will be the first time he has helmed. Turner, 33, is representing the Albacore fleet and is particularly looking forward to sailing the new boat: “I guess no one has sailed a Xenon so we are all in the same boat – literally. No one will have an advantage this time which I guess is really good. We are looking forward to having a go in something different. It should be a lot of fun.”

Weatherwise, the better day for wind this weekend looks set to be Saturday. The forecast is for a depression to be centred over Iceland with a trough extending way up north towards the Arctic and the north-south orientated cold front associated with this system will be hovering over the UK all weekend. Over the course of Saturday night and Sunday this front looks set to move north and dissolve.

Thus the prevailing winds on Saturday are forecast to be SSW - 10-15 knots first thing, veering south and building to 15-20 knots over the course of the rest of the day. Low tide on the Crouch is around 0900, high tide 1515.

With the arrival of what's left of the front on Saturday night the wind will veer into the northwest but come Sunday morning first thing it is likely to be Harry flatters or very light WSWerly with a 5-10 knots southwesterly building during the morning and backing fractionally over the course of the afternoon. The tide is likely to have a whole lot more influence on Sunday - low tide is around 0930, high tide 1600. Temperature should be around 18degC most of the weekend.

420	Matt Burge & Chris Evans
505	Christian Diebitsch & Terry Scutcher
29er	Huw Humphries & Max Todd
Albacore	Chris Turner & Simon Maguire
Blaze	Mike Lyons & Katie Keam-George
Cadet	Stephen Videlo & James Joplin
Comet	Ian Coppenhall
Enterprise	Tim Sadler & Richard Salt
Finn	Nick Craig & James Stewart
GP14	Graham Nelson & Mike Senior
ISO	Lloyd Walker
Lark	Sarah Richards & Nigel Wakefield
Laser	Paul Goodison
Laser4000	Andy Palmer-Felgate
Miracle	Sam Mettem & Dan Vincent
Mirror	Hector & Bill Cisneros
OK	Steve Dunn
Phantom	Simon Childs & Tim Saxton
RS200	Craig Burlton & Fiona Clark
RS300	Ian Baillie
Streaker	Ian Jones
Supernova	Mike Gibson
Topper	Bleddyn Mon & Duncan West
Vortex	Keith Escritt & Phill Whitehead