This historic annual event, which was first held in 1961, is invitation only to determine the overall dinghy champion of champions from the UK's most popular dinghy racing classes, but in this special 50th year, the organisers have opened up the invitation to former Endeavour champions who will race in the Masters' Championship.
Because the Endeavour Trophy is, and has always been, recognised as the pinnacle of the year's dinghy sailing achievements, it is not surprising there's already a healthy entry to year's special event. The Advanta-sponsored Masters' championship – to be held on the Sunday – will be a great spectators' event with the likes of former champions Keith Musto, Nick Martin, Chips Howard, Ian Southworth, David Hayes, Mike Holmes, Alan Gillard, Steve Tylecote, Mike McNamara, Nick Craig, and last year's winner Geoff Carveth among those signed up so far.
The race programme for the 50th Anniversary Endeavour Trophy for 2010 champions starts on Friday 1 October, racing for the Endeavour series continues all day Saturday, and concludes on Sunday morning.
To ensure the event is made as fair as possible – to provide for the diverse entry including solo, double-handed, heavy and lightweight crews – racing takes place in carefully selected, strict one-designs. Owing to the success of the last five years, the Ian Howlett-designed Topper Xenon is the chosen class once again. Not only does this particular design offer an ideal all-up crew weight range of between 18-24 stone (114-152 kilos), but also because it's a relatively new design and has no class championship, there is no class champion to gain an unfair advantage.
Topper, who have specifically built and kindly loaned the fleet of 30 brand-new Xenons for the event, have been working closely with Hyde who are supplying sails, and Allen Brothers the fittings. Together they have been able to produce an 'Endeavour boat' that is arguably the most fair choice of class in the history of the event.
Tickets for the grand 'open' 50th anniversary Endeavour dinner on the Saturday night at the Royal Corinthian Yacht Club are available from Kate Boothy at the RCYC office on +44(0)1621 782105, or e-mail: [email protected].
Brief history of the Endeavour Trophy
The Endeavour Trophy is a solid silver scale model of the 'J' Class yacht Endeavour presented annually to the Champion of Champions at the Royal Corinthian Yacht Club, Burnham-on-Crouch.
The origin of the trophy stems from Tommy Sopwith's 'J' Class yacht Endeavour, America's Cup Challenge in 1934. Following a pay dispute and dismissal of his East coast-based professional crew, Sopwith enlisted the help of 'Tiny' Mitchell, the Commodore of the Royal Corinthian Yacht Club at the time, to recruit amateur members of the club to form a crew.
Although Endeavour won the first two races against Rainbow and lost the series, this was the closest England has ever got to winning the coveted America's Cup.
Years later, Robin Judah – respected member of the RCYC – was anxious to establish a series of races for dinghy sailors in order to discover the 'Champion of Champions'. Beecher Moore, former Endeavour crew, and marketing man behind the successful dinghy designer Jack Holt, joined Judah in his quest to run this event and presented for the overall winner, his solid silver scale model of the yacht.
The first invitation-only race took place in 1961 and the winner was Peter Bateman, representing the International Cadet Class, crewed by Keith Musto. The original idea was to use the club's own fleet of 15 Royal Corinthian One-Desgins but they were considered too specialist and would have placed a perpetual limit on the number of entries. Since then the event has been sailed numerous classes including the GP 14s, Laser 2s, Larks, Enterprises, RS400s and now the Topper Xenon.
For details visit: www.royalcorinthian.co.uk/endeavour-championship
