Craig & Roberts comes up as winners

Alan Roberts & Nick Craig (Merlin Rocket) have come up as the 2013 winners of Endeavour Championships. The 8-race dinghy racing event was hosted as Royal Corinthian Yacht Club.

After coming 2nd to Fireball’s Richard Anderton and Christian Birrell in the inaugural race of the event, Roberts and Craig emerged with quite a stellar series of 7 straight wins. The overall win marks a phenomenal occasion for Nick, letting him into the coveted record book of Endeavour Trophy winner for 6 times. It puts him ahead of Geoff Carveth, the erstwhile record holder. In fact, Merlin Rocket is arguably the 1st team to win on the championship with 7 first places.

The 2013 Endeavour Trophy was undoubtedly a grand win for both Craig & Roberts as they got the opportunity to showcase their dynamism in both the breezy and light conditions. Albeit Craig confessed of his discomfort with light airs, yet he & Roberts managed to flaunt a fantastic display of very tactical light-wind sail on the esteemed championship. The final day of the championship found the winners extremely comfortable in spite of a slightly slower start in initial race where they were pushed to the 9th position at the 1st mark.

Fireball’s Anderton & Birrell was leading the race yet by the 2nd beat it was the Roberts-Craig brilliant camaraderie that detoured the entire fate of the race pulling it in the favor of Merlin Rocket. It was pretty tough for the Merlin duo as apart from the stiff competition from Fireball, they had to battle a strong fight against highly competing RS800’s James Date & Toby Wincer. RS800 came to the 2nd position in the event.

“The main key to the victory was undoubtedly Alan, He nailed down every gybe, tack, hoist & drop – everything was simply perfect”, Craig was in full praise of his team mate while asked to comment on the win. Merlin Rocket contended with Topper Xenon.