Louise Morton tells Georgie Corlett-Pitt about her work in sailing, how she revived the Quarter Tonner class, and why female sailors make the best crew…
Louise Morton is one of the Solent’s superstars – known on and off the water. Many will know her as a skilled international regatta manager, as well as the organising force behind several class associations.
On the water, she’s a talented sailor with a long list of titles to prove it, including four wins of the Quarter Ton Cup, and Gold Roman Bowl winner (racing with her husband, a three times winner) in the Round the Island Race. Noted for sailing with an all-female crew, just this summer Louise was invited to enter the first all-female crew in the RC44 World Championships. She has won the Women’s Open Keelboat Championship four times, along with numerous other first female prizes, and received the Ladies Day Trophy at Cowes Week in recognition of her outstanding contribution.
Away from the Solent, Louise has raced extensively in RORC and EAORA Series, as well as completing the ARC and the Fastnet several times; she has competed in top regattas in the Caribbean and Asia, and cruised across the Pacific.
Last year, Louise switched into the 5.5 Metre Class. As we speak, she’s not long back from the 5.5 Metre Worlds in Porto Cervo, Sardinia, where she was thrilled to finish sixth overall in the 34-boat fleet, one place ahead of her husband Peter ‘Morty’ Morton.
Morty is himself a well-known and highly successful sailor, but the couple are more used to sailing against rather than with each other. According to Louise, they have more fun when they sail against each other, and she confides to being “absolutely delighted” whenever she beats him.
This fun rivalry means that the couple tend to run their campaigns in tandem, an idea which first came about when – in a bid to help boost the class – Morty gifted his first Quarter Tonner to Louise and encouraged her to skipper her own campaign.
That was in 2005. The couple had met several years earlier – at a sailing event, no surprise – and moved to the Isle of Wight; Louise had felt immediately at home in Cowes. Describing the Solent as “a fantastic place to sail”, says she loves the sense of community.
But her early days were spent far from the Solent however, as she spent some of her childhood in Germany, where her father was serving in the army. Her parents were both avid sailor
