Just read the Y&Y report on the Endeavor "Champion of Champions" Trophy report. Nick Craig won again - this time representing B14s where he beat Barnsie in the champs. Second up was Roger Gilbert, Merlin 2007 & 2008 Champ, but this time representing his RS200 affiliation. All well and good, but why was there not a Merlin rep? It strikes me that the Merlins have not figured much in this prestigious annual event for several years. Does it matter? Discuss!

I believe the rules of the game are that only national champions can attend - not runners up.  So as Roger Gilbert was our champion, but chose to represent the RS 200, the Merlins couldn't be represented.

Hi, JC is right. Edmond insists that only the Class's National, European or World Champion assuming British may attend. We dominated in 2006 but lost the Nats but were unable to represent the B14s. Need to have a champion who is not multi-class or if they win your champs, nominate them immediately if they have not already entered to lock them in. The B14s nominate their champion now within the following month. Next year we will hopefully have all 3 options open to us.
BFN
PS for the record. Nick chse at the B14s to not follow the crowd in raking and came out well and sailed round us and did a good job. Great he and Toby won the event as Toby puts so much in and is John Gorringe's crew in Easy Rider.

Seems a bit of a daft rule, if somebody had the time they could probably win 4 or more titles thus eliminating 3 or more classes from the Trophy.
Obviously you do not want the farcical situation such as footballs champions league where the third or fourth place team play but in the event of multiple class champions whats wrong with the next best? 
The Merlins could always make Salcombe week the Merlin World Champs then problem solved!

So are Mr Shunter, Kearnsey and Deepy allowed to qualify being "Rater winners?" At the Nationals this year?????

You can represent two clubs at an open meeting, so why not two classes at the Endeavor?

To put a slightly more positive spin on this the 1st 2nd and 6th boats had representatives in that sail Merlins and who were at Looe.
Indeed Toby (Mr Tickle)won the fancy dress competition.
Perhaps we should put out a press release!

Yes. Only fancy dress winners in the Endeavour!

Thanks to all the learned gents for explaining my puzzlement.

The cynic could suggest that they were representing the commercial classes - Manufacturers One Designs -, rather than the corinthian ones like OK's Enterprises and of course Merlin Rockets. 
Not that money changed hands of course.

without being too much of a pain to the cunning insinuation of our Cynic...
The OK's and Ents both had reps at the endeavour, and Roger was sailing with his 200 crew, so probably a little tricky entering as the merlin reps...

...and roger represented merlins last year so fairs, fair...

..but it's a bit unfair on his Merlin crew who earned an Endeavour place this year but was denied the opportunity. Maybe there's a case for pairing the put-out crew with a single hander class champion for the Endeavour.

Glenn and Olly 2009

to qualify, does'nt there have to be a certain number of entries at a classes nationals?will we ever see a sygnet endeavour winner perhaps???

The funniest thing is that there is no Xenon representative.

With the Xenon, it should be renamed the dodgem/bumper boat champs. As the boats are slow and therefore the racing really close, with the mark roundings critical as the fleet bunches up. From our experience, certain characters decided the rules, what rules applied to them. We advised a couple of boats they had no room on one mark rounding and they just tried to barge in. However, that just rafted us up to leeward and as they still could not get in, simply missed the mark out. During that year's event, rafting happened a number of times with very few taking turns. Noticed this year that there were similar incidents of rafting up at marks. Unfortunately, the boats lend themselves to this as pretty bullet proof. Would be great to see top team racing judges policing the event as I think we'd then see a different set of results. However, I have to say that it is a good event and one has to go into the racing with an open mind.
Though Glenn and Olly did not win, they did well and were, I suspect right on the top end of effective racing weight limit for the boat as it does not carry weight kindly as we found out racing at 24 stone.  
We took a good look at the boat and photos post our year and reckon that you wanted to be 20 - 22.5 stone to stand a chance of winning in all conditions with 23 stone tops.
Be interesting to read the boys report in the next mag.
BFN

no Xenon rep was because they haven't held a National Champs !!

COuld the Endeavour Trophy count as the Xenon National Champs??? I'm sure Mr Dalby could answer this apparent conundrum

As Guy says "So are Mr Shunter, Kearnsey and Deepy allowed to qualify being "Rater winners?" " that would be interesting, all three, and about 45 stone in a Xenon

Perhaps it should be held in the Comet Trio instead, Scotty.  No doubt a finer boat with a more significant chance of a Merlin related winning helm.  One suspects slightly less weight critical...?

Does this thread, neatly straddling 13th October 2008 to 14th October 2009 as it does, qualify as a Grand Master long-lived topic. Watch this space on 15th October 2010 for another thrilling installment of the Barbsie (oops, should be Barnsie) Saga