Champion of champions
In a fleet of the highest possible calibre that pits national champions against one another, how do you gain the edge? Winner of the 2022 Endeavour Trophy Tom Morris reveals how he sailed to success…
The 61st Endeavour Trophy, hosted by Royal Corinthian YC, went down to the wire in a seven-race series held in brisk, shifty southeasterlies and with strong spring tides. The conditions added to the notoriety of the venue, which 2022’s champion Tom Morris described as “a good leveller” for the 30 teams competing.
Sailing with crew Guy Fillmore, Tom earned his invite after winning the RS800 Nationals in July. After four races, the duo were overnight leaders by one point, and began day two battling last year’s winner, Olympic silver medallist Luke Patience and crew Faye Chatterton, each taking one race win apiece. But an 11th in the final race led Tom and Guy to believe their chance of an overall victory had been quashed, so it was with surprise that they later learned of their win.
Persistence is crucial
Asked how the event came together overall, Tom cites persistence as crucial to success in such a competitive fleet, saying: “There were two races where we made big comebacks after struggling to get o from the start.
Part of it was sticking to our game plan of heading right upwind, but also just keeping pressing right to the finish.”
He also went as well-prepared as he could be in light of the event being held in RS200s, with brand-new sails provided by RS Sailing, helping to level the playing field between the various class champions. Although Tom already has some experience of the RS200 (he races in this class with a dierent, lighter crew), he and Guy were mindful of their disappointing 10th place finish together at last year’s (2021) Endeavour Trophy, so this year had purposefully set aside time to practise in the RS200.
Tricky conditions
“Last year the conditions were tricky, but I also felt we weren't able to transfer much of our co-ordinated crew work from the RS800 to the RS200,” Tom explains. “So, this year, we found some narrow channels in Chichester Harbour to replicate the conditions we knew we'd see at the Endeavour, and to practise our short tacking and short gybing down shorelines - something that doesn't happen too often in the RS800 fleet!
“This made a real dierence to our boat handling sharpness and allowed us to focus on boat-on-boat positioning, plus it gives you the half a boat length here or there to extricate yourself from dicult situations.”
Tom was also reasonably confident in his set-up of the RS200, albeit sailing with a heavier crew meant a few changes to keep the boat as powered up as possible; for example, using less kicker and more mainsheet tension allowed him to create more depth in the sail. He explains: “There is only so much power you can generate from a rig, and sometimes you just have to accept that you will suer in certain conditions and on certain legs. So, I left my rig set-up as it was; where with my usual RS200 crew I would have been raking the mast back half a hole or so, with Guy I stuck with the more powerful set-up.”
Being a heavier team, downwind they felt they sacrificed boat speed to the lighter crews who were able to sail dierent angles. But, with their bigger picture strategy in place, the pair was confident in their ability to take back the advantage on the upwind legs.
And every place counted; after one discard, Tom and Guy finished four points ahead of Luke Patience and Faye Chatterton, with Tom jubilantly describing their win as “a good score for the amateurs”.