Last weekend I had the fantastic opportunity of sailing with Richard Stenhouse (a fellow Olympian) at the Endeavour Trophy. The event is also know as the ‘Champion of Champions’ as National Champions from various classes are invited to compete against each other in Topper Xenons to race for the highly covetted Endeavour Trophy.
Richard had gained his invitation to the event by winning the Musto Skiff Nationals earlier in the year and he is also the current World and European Champion in the class. He has however, been a singlehanded sailor all his life so having someone else in the boat with him was quite entertaining.
I had never sailed a Xenon before and neither of us really knew the best way to set it up to make it fast. During the practice sail it also became apparent that our weight would be better distributed if we swapped round but the rules of the event wouldn’t allow it (Richard was helming and I was in the less familiar role of crew). The racing was extremly fast and furious with no slouches in the fleet and a stiff breeze to keep everyone on their toes. The first day we were consistent but couldn’t break into the front of the fleet and both felt we needed to do a lot better on the second day to avoid embarrassment. After a few overnight modifications we found ourselves in much better shape on the race course and finished up with a 2nd and a 4th which we were really pleased with. Perhaps if we’d managed to do some sailing together before the event the result would have been better but in the end we were pleased with 8th overall in such a competitive field. 
Next year I will have to try and gain an invitation in my own right so that I get to helm rather than crew and then see how well I can really do!
On the Monday I was straight back to the day job helming the 470 and training hard with the rest of the squad down at Weymouth for the week which was then capped off with a National ranking event which Kat and I won. The intensive training continues for the next few weeks before we get a bit of a break in Nov.
