Fireballs in the US, where are they? Options

[kmccabe]

Hey whatever happened to that class. They were GREAT!

[kanaka]

There is a guy in BC who just had his molds and first boat pulled, certified by the class. He's planning on building them and getting the class pumped gain. Don't think he posts here, but I'll email him about your question. Still common up in Canada.

[Gouvernail]

Our fleet hosted the US nationals in 1975 and finally died in the late Eighties. The fiberglass boats were all junkers. My wooden #1300 was stolen and junked (thieves wanted the trailer). There is one 1980s vintage "coffee table" boat stored indoors but no one has sailed it in twenty years. She would sell it to someone if she believed it would be restored and sailed.

[Don'tCallMeJudge]

I raced Fireballs at the US Nationals at Lake Dillon, CO and Huntington Lake, CA and the North Americans at Victoria, BC back in the mid-90s. LOVED the boats!

This is the link I found for the Fireball North American class: http://fireball-international.ca/indexFB.html

[Red Dragon]

In the US? Ohio and Pennsylvania. They had a nice little fleet at Cleveland Race Week a couple of years ago. Wonderful boats. When I was a kid I used to worship Steve Benjamin. I was always a little worried about the scow shape in seas when I was younger, then when I got older I got too big for the boat. I'd still love to give it a whirl just for the fun of it.

RD

[MR.CLEAN]

NA's were on the Great South Bay this summer, KM - with maybe 12 boats - report was on the front page, with pics. My boss at Ocean Sailing Academy, Ned Goss, took 2nd. He's a multiple champ, loves the class. He took me out for a screamer on Charleston Harbor in June, and I just loved the boat. Interesting combo - rig a lot like a 5-oh, hull of a scow. There are a handful down here, some in Jersey, I'll see if I can get more info.

[USA-7]

there's a good fleet of them in eastern Canada. have seen a good turn out of them at CORK a few times in the recent years.

[kmccabe]

NA's were on the Great South Bay this summer, KM - with maybe 12 boats - report was on the front page, with pics. My boss at Ocean Sailing Academy, Ned Goss, took 2nd. He's a multiple champ, loves the class. He took me out for a screamer on Charleston Harbor in June, and I just loved the boat. Interesting combo - rig a lot like a 5-oh, hull of a scow. There are a handful down here, some in Jersey, I'll see if I can get more info.

I would really love to see their participation at the HPDO at AYC. They're a cool boat and have been for 40 years.

[whack-a-mole]

A ton of them showed up for the 2007 midwinters at Davis Island. They went out in about 20 knots on the first day and were absolutly flying! It looked like a fantastic ride. I really thought some of them would would come apart since they are so light and it was really gusty, but none of them broke. Tougher than they look. It seemed like half of them were Canadian, but a lot of them had US sail numbers as well.

[Steve Adolph]

I thought there was a rule change in Australia that killed the NA fleet?

Did I hear that correctly?

(was it carbon spars?)

[contender_neil]

The main fleet in Canada is based in Montreal. They are very fast boats when sailed well, they love the big air.

Neil

[simbert]

The main fleet in Canada is based in Montreal. They are very fast boats when sailed well, they love the big air.

Neil

They take a lot of work to keep up. Most of them are not even good for firewood anymore. Laser beams are too bright on this island.

[contender_neil]

They take a lot of work to keep up. Most of them are not even good for firewood anymore. Laser beams are too bright on this island.

Not the new ones, they are made out of kevlar and last forever. Still huge in England.

Neil

[MR.CLEAN]

Anyone looking for info on Fireballs can call Ned Goss at 843-270-2172. He's spending a lot of time trying to revive the class with some success. Ned(at)osasailing(dot)com.

I just spoke to him, he said to pass it along.

[Roy_Race]

...I was always a little worried about the scow shape in seas ...
RD

I did a season of Fireball sailing in the UK about 3 years ago. (Top ten Nationals). Yeah, It can get a bit hairy downwind in waves, but in anything over 12 knots they are sailing full "asymmetric" angles downwind. Crew high wiring, helm sat to windward and gybing through a full 90 degrees.
Which is just as well really, as they don't go straight downwind in those conditions without burying the nose up to the gooseneck 2 or 3 times a run!
With the fast angles, that's much less likely and they are SO much fun. Honestly, I've never sailed anything which feels like it can go so fast. It must be all those chines on the hull that make them able to go faster and faster in a straight line without ever losing control. They are much faster than a 470 downwind in breeze, but maybe a fraction slower upwind.

...(was it carbon spars?)

No, they don't allow carbon anything.

The kevlar foam sandwich boats are totally standard now though. You never see a wooden boat figuring in the results.

[simbert]

Not the new ones, they are made out of kevlar and last forever. Still huge in England.

Neil

Only few new ones wouldn't make up a fleet. There are hundreds got cut up during the years.

Laser beams are just too bright for while and kill everything in the path. But now you got splits poking around, so I don't see anymore kids will take the test tube thing anymore. Ask NA fireballer and they will tell you.

[Pete M]

Allison Jolly usta be the one pushing them on the west coast of the US - can't say I've seen any in the past ten years tho

[simbert]

No, they don't allow carbon anything.

The kevlar foam sandwich boats are totally standard now though. You never see a wooden boat figuring in the results.

Kevlar hull, hummmm.... so if you got hit.....not a pretty picture at all, should go carbon hull. 10% pricing difference??? ballpark???

[GBRFireballer]

The kevlar boats are alot tougher than you would expect
Neil
29er GBR394

[Chris 249]

Surely a great boat for the inland Scow guys to adopt - still a Scow (of sorts) but actually offering international competition. Why do they ignore it?

[JimC]

Surely a great boat for the inland Scow guys to adopt - still a Scow (of sorts) but actually offering international competition. Why do they ignore it?

The usual US problem - NIH I guess...

[Foilman]

Fireballs aren't totally dead in North America, but participation has declined a lot since I bought my first 'ball in '95. There are healthy fleets in Montreal, Calgary, and Victoria, with pockets of activity elsewhere. David White did a lot in Pennsylvania with the high school building program, bringing back the Pymatuning Ohio fleet from extinction.

What kills any fleet?
- technical obsolesence
- aging out, without bringing in new blood
- volunteer burnout, and class officers staying in position long after they're effective while new people fail to step up
- in-fighting

Fireballs have had their share of all of these, but they're still a hell of a lot of fun to sail. People hang on to their boats long after they stop sailing them, because of the fond memories I guess. There are a lot of good hulls hiding in garages that really should be sold back into the fleet.

On the technical front, there have been a couple of biggies. They say that when Mark Lindsay started building 'balls (this would be around the 10,000 sail number) it instantly obsoleted the crappy 'glass boats that were popular at the time (Rondars, Smallcraft, and about a dozen other builders). It killed the Long Island junior fleet... if you couldn't afford a Lindsay you might as well not show up. Well, that's the legend anyway. And well built wooden boats stay stiff forever (not good news for the builders of the day).

The 2nd big shift was the development of the "wide bow" boat by Peter DeLange and Steve Smith. They figured out that you could push the beam quite a bit inbetween forward measurement stations, and you'd have a boat that worked better in big waves, and combined with flat rocker would plane earlier than the "skinny" boats (skinny boats, BTW, are still very effective in inland waters). These boats showed up at the very windy Montreal worlds (84?)... "Glass and a Half" and "Risky Business" are still kicking around... 'glass is in Montreal and Risky is probably still in the southern US. But as was noted earlier, the "wide bow" is now the standard shape, with all the current molds being an evolution of the DeLange. Unfortunately I think there are currently only two commercial builders now. Winder in the UK, and Devoisin in Europe. YMS packed it in in Australia, and we haven't had a builder in North America in decades... ACME tried and failed around '99 or '00 (and there was another big in-fleet shit fight in the south-east states that came out of that venture too).

Then there's the age problem, I'm just not seeing many younger sailers getting into fireballs, unless brought up in the fleet by their parents. And fewer of us feel like beating up our old bones in the boats anymore. You really need a good crew to be competitive, and sailing with a pickup crew just plain sucks.

When I bought my boat there was a great fleet in Toronto. Debbie Thomas was the sparkplug, bringing up lots of "fixer upper" boats from whereever she could find them... many from the Wrightsville Beach fleet, which burnt out after hosting the (92?) worlds. But then people started having babies, a few moved out of town, there was burnout from the '96 Kingston Worlds, and a shit fight about splitting the fleet between TS&CC and National. That fleet evaporated in remarkably little time. We benefitted to some extent in Ottawa, at one point we had 14 active boats at Nepean Sailing Club. But those numbers are dwindling now, with few actively racing them. I was Ontario VP myself for far too long, and the person that finally replaced me has moved out of province without arranging for his own replacement. Same old, same old.

Phil (CAN14678)

[Steve Adolph]

I thought there was a rule change in Australia that killed the NA fleet?

Did I hear that correctly?

(was it carbon spars?)

geez, no one bit on that one. Thought I was going to have fun with it.

Seriously, there was a rule change that made the NA boats uncompetitive, and that killed the fleet. But, I don't have the details so if someone does, please post what happened, because it would be good to get the facts on the table.

Foilman? I know you know. I think.

[Foilman]

Seriously, there was a rule change that made the NA boats uncompetitive, and that killed the fleet. But, I don't have the details so if someone does, please post what happened, because it would be good to get the facts on the table.

Foilman? I know you know. I think.

Really... no. The chair of the Fireball International Technical Committee is Tom in Montreal, and I have to say he's done a great job in his tenure of sheparding through incremental changes to keep the boat current.

In the past few years we've allowed laminate sails, reduced mast tip weight, and allowed increased lead corrector weights (the Winders were so light that people were blatently epoxying sand into their tanks to measure in). Carbon will happen sooner or later. When Kevlar was first allowed it was much less expensive than carbon, but now they're at similar price points (carbon price fluctuations aside).... well, the price difference of going to carbon given the few yards that would go into a hull really wouldn't be a make or break decision on buying a new boat.

The big change in the mid 80s was the wide bow hull, but that was an evolution within current rules of the day (ie: LOOPHOLE).

[Steve Adolph]

The big change in the mid 80s was the wide bow hull, but that was an evolution within current rules of the day (ie: LOOPHOLE).

thanks, that was it.

What I had heard was that this was a tipping point in the fleet, it became a "get a new hull or move on" situation.