PCYC’s Fireball fleet held its 38th edition of the Screwball Regatta on October 5th and 6th. Despite being scheduled a little later in the season than usual, great weather was enjoyed both days. There were six boats competing – A decent turnout considering all of the boats were local.
Winds were light for the first two Saturday races but freshened significantly and there was a good breeze for the third. Shifty gusts caught several crews surprise and resulted in capsize including Pierre Carpentier and Tom Bird who still managed to cross the finish line first.
Three more races were run on Sunday in a stiff breeze Sunday. Through good competition Pierre and Tom dominated the day scoring bullets in every race earning them first place in the regatta. Second place went to Bill Strath and Dave Munro and third place to Jason Magder and Floris Van Vugt.
It was great to see some people out on the course that aren’t usually sailing Fireballs. A couple of scholarship boats were out sailing. Sleeping Beauty had Ryan Stowe on the helm with Julie Hobbs crewing and JT Kelly was helming Men in black with Annalyn Tardy crewing. Thomas Harries was also out helming both days but with different crew on Saturday (Laska Leonard) and Sunday (Jon Driver).
Thank you to everyone who came out to sail in the regatta. A big thanks Tom Bird for organizing the event, a task made even more difficult than usual when held this late in the season. And a huge shout-out to our Race Committee Luka Bartulovic, Francois and Freddy Fortier, Bill, Stas, Biliana and Melis. Despite being short-handed, especially on Sunday, they did a fantastic job!
The BC fireball championships brought together 8 boats from Victoria, Vancouver, and the Okanogan! Matchmaking was a highlight of this regatta, largely a result of Liam’s efforts towards pairing people up to fill boats and get them on the water. Three boats were sailed by non-owners or combined crews.
Day 1 of the 2024 BC Fireball Championships at Jericho Sailing Centre gave us strong flood tides pushing into light and fickle easterlies. There was exciting racing with position changes happening often both upwind and downwind. The day was drizzly and grey but the mood was upbeat as we admired several refurbished boats. Jim proudly sailed in his resurrected wooden beauty with Trevor crewing, while the second wooden boat of Rich Helmer’s was loaned to Jericho Laser sailors Bob and Kate.
Day 2 brought sun and blue skies and a thermal of 15 knots gusting to 20. It was a bit much for some, leading to capsizes and breakdowns, but was thrilling for others. Julian, skipping his old boat with Jamie (a bright orange Winder named Tangaroo), it’s current owner, achieved a solid regatta win. It was never a romp, as they were battled closely in every race, but their skill usually led them to the front at the finish line. Congrats on some great sailing and we hope you guys will team up again soon. Mark with new crew Ryan sailed well and had a remarkable come-from-behind win to close the Saturday sailing. They edged-out Richard and Liam for second place. The Quinlans were often ahead in starts and early legs, but were plagued by mark-rounding errors causing costly passes. Shannon, Kelly, and Eric were strongly-positioned after day 1, but slipped back a bit in the big winds of day 2. Tanja, an accomplished Radial and keelboat sailor, sailed to 5th with Jericho Laser sailor, David, on day 1 and Liam’s friend, James, on Day 2. Tanja has often been seen in Liz’s Winder this year and we hope she’ll keep coming back. Laser sailors Bob and Kate placed 6th and showed their adaptability by finishing every race in trying conditions. It was nice to see Fireball board members Greg and Evelyn teamed up to sail to 7th in the class they love so much. Jim and Trevor showed great mettle heading out for the second day after being away from the class for so long.
With challenging winds and currents and boats needing assistance, it was reassuring to have the Jericho race committee and rescue boats with us. Dominic, Safety and Events Manager, is a highly competent leader of this excellent team that gave us such fun and safe sailing in English Bay. Dominic is a good friend of the Fireball fleet and has offered to host the 2025 Canadian Championships, pending discussions about dates and format. Stay tuned!
Check out the exciting Drone footage from Jericho Sailing Association at the link below:
The 2024 North American Fireball Championships was, in the words of the race officer, ‘a sporty affair’. The famous winds of the Columbia River Gorge delivered knock-down punches in the early rounds sending teams ashore with torn mainsails, severed halyards and snapped rudders. Thirty-knot gusts stripped crews from gunnels and slapped skippers off side decks. Mark & Evelyn showed their mettle keeping capsizes down to single-digits and dominating their opponents to become undisputed Fireball Champions of North America. Behind them it was a Columbia River logjam. Richard & Liam returned from an early setback to seal second, Clay & Adam treaded water to third, Grant & Averill used a bullet to finish fourth, and Ryan & Robert tied Kelly & Eric for fifth. Many thanks to family members for their support and to Mianne and Rebecca for bravely bouncing about boats on race committee duty.
We awarded the newly-discovered North American Fireball trophy, as well as CFA- sponsored Fireball mugs to 1 st , 2 nd , and 3 rd placers. The 4 th , 5 th and 5 th place teams received Fireball ditty bags donated by Fireball Alberta. The final competitive event was a comparison of scrapes, bruises, and associated stories amongst survivors.
This was the first Fireball North Americans in several years. Let’s keep this rolling! We should have the 2025 Fireball North Americans north of the border and somewhere east of Winnipeg. The 2025 Canadian Championships will be coming to BC, and the 2025 USA Championships will presumably be a western regatta. Let’s start thinking of suitable locations and dates!
Richard Quinlan President, Canadian Fireball Association
It has been a great Fireballing season so far with good winds at several of our regattas. I’ve just returned from the Prairie Winds where 5 Alberta Fireballs traded leads back and forth all weekend in 10 races with moderate winds and 30°C temps. It was very close with the father/son Tichkowsky team taking first, Debbie Kirkby and Chris Gerard second and the father/son Lemke team in third, then Crawford/Hider and Quinlan/Brocke.
Next is the big one – The North American Fireball Championships at Cascade Locks, Oregon on July 27-28 – less than two weeks! ‘The Gorge’ usually delivers, particularly on these hot mid-summer days, with thermal winds generally above 10 knots and often in the teens by afternoon. Come and join us in some friendly competition and good camaraderie for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to sail in Fireballs at one of the best dinghy-sailing destinations in the world! Information on registration and accommodations can be found at https://www.regattanetwork.com/event/27586#_registration. Camping is adjacent to the grounds of the Columbia Gorge Racing Association and I have one extra campsite pre-booked in my name that’s available for the asking.
Some of us will also be sailing in the Alberta Heritage Classic July 20-21, and the Wabamun Sail Week July 22-28. Looking further ahead, a push is on to get the biggest western Fireball fleet of the year at the BC Champs on Sept 14-15 at Jericho Sailing Centre. There’s a rumour afoot this might be a trial run for 2025 Fireball Canadians…
Day 1 of the WSC Founders was COLD (high of 5°) and windy (15-20 knots). Frequent squalls drove near-freezing rain into grimacing faces. The biting cold worked its way through neoprene and fleece into sailor’s cores. Debbie and Greg set a high standard but Richard & Hein had layered up enough to outlast the rest of the fleet and build an unbeatable lead. Day two was also cool with single-digit temperatures and light, puffy, flippy-floppy winds. Debbie & Gregg duked it out with Ken & Fraser all morning, then a confusing abandonment drove most to shore. It was great to have Roy Tichkowsky’s sleek boat return, well-sailed by son Ian and nephew Neil. The youthful enthusiasm of accomplished sailors and new Fireball owners David & Wojciech was infectious, as they prepared and raced Roy’s much older wooden boat. This well-run regatta gave us great sailing and some fun social time! Photo credits to Fred Hadley.
A small contingent of fireballs raced in the Jericho Classic regatta in Vancouver on June 1st and 2nd. Thanks to Jim Davie and Dominique Labrosse for some great pictures from the event!
Sixty-six boats were registered but only 59 arrived on the start line. That’s because the Brit’s and Czech’s containers got diverted by the Red Sea conflict and they never got their boats. Miraculously, Australian organisers found replacement boats for all, and most took advantage of that, but a handful chose not to sail without the familiarity of their own boats. Half the fleet is race-ready Aussies in the middle of their season. The rest hail from GBR, FRA, IRL, SUI, ITA, and CZE plus three CAN boats – Mark Cummings & Evelyn Chisholm of Cadboro Bay Sailing Association, Kelly & Shannon Gallin skipping one regatta each with Eric Diller crewing. They’re also from southern Vancouver Island, sailing at Caddy Bay and North Saanich Yacht Club. Clay Paulson, of the Arizona Yacht Club, is crewing for Mianne Erne of Switzerland. And then there’s us – Liam sails at Jericho Sailing Centre in Vancouver, while I sail locally at St. Mary’s Sailing Club in Lethbridge, and at Calgary Yacht Club when droughts drain our local reservoir.
We haven’t been practicing together due to distance, and because of me missing most of the 2023 season due to an annoying new heart condition. And it’s the middle of the Canadian winter! At Stingaree Bay off Royal Geelong Yacht Club there’ll be strong offshore, shifty winds with little wave development. The Aussies call it an ‘offshore ocean breeze with flatwater’. I’m hoping our inland shifty-sailing experience will help.
Fireball Worlds attracts strong sailors with decades of dedication to the unique class. The Fireball was designed in the 1960s and has a unique look that conveys timeless coolness like the MGBs, XKEs, and Corvettes from that era. It’s one-design but with parameters broad enough to allow creativity in rigging. Carefully-guided development has led to faster hulls, flat spinnakers for high reaches, trapezes, and mylar sails. The boat needs to be tuned well to go fast, and Fireballers are keen to trade intelligence on best settings and go-fasts.
We’ll be sailing against the best! Liam and I have sailed in four previous Fireball Worlds, but were toward the back of the fleet. A mid-30s finish is our goal as we’re relatively inexperienced, unpracticed sailors in an unfamiliar older boat. And that performance goal is secondary to staying healthy, having fun, improving our sailing and teamwork, and socializing with Aussie and international sailors.
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Day 1 of pre-worlds was a baptism by seawater! The wind whipped up to 20 knots by the first start. By the third race, gusts were knocking boats over on upwind legs. The gybe mark was a demolition derby! We held ourselves to just one capsize on a spinnaker gybe and, happily, Liam got the boat up really quickly and I scooped into the cockpit. We’re exhilarated and tired at the end of the day! Our resurrected Fireball provided some surprizes – an exploding spinnaker halyard cleat, a tiller extension that ripped-off mid-race due to corrosion, jib positioning problems due to strangely positioned jib leads, and a slot gasket replacement. And this is just Day One! Ah, but we smile and make repairs to sail another day. Mark and Evelyn were also dealing with breakdowns on their colourful chartered boat ‘Smokin Gun’. We seemed to be playing leap-frog with Shannon and Eric, passing them upwind but then they’d fly by us on spinnaker legs.
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The Pre-World Australian Championships gave us 2 more days of challenging sailing in strong shifty winds. The winners were Dave Hall and Paul Constable of England – real gentlemen who have been sailing together since kids. They told me they know each other so well they rarely even talk in the boat – just go through the motions instinctively now! Top Australians came second: Ben Schultz of South Australia with a youngster who’s the Australian 470 champion crewing. We placed 39th out of 52 boats. In the mysteriously-calculated ‘handicap’ standings, we got first, just ahead of Shannon and Eric in second. We all got ‘special prizes’ at the end of each day, so we’re doing well in the swag department! Mark & Evelyn placed 44th and Shannon & Eric were 48th. Mianne and Clay generously leant their boat to a Czech team to sail in pre-worlds, but they’ll join us for Worlds. We’re all keen to move on to the main event.
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Whoa… that was a wild first day of Worlds! A north wind duking it out with the ocean breeze caused really shifty conditions. That was not to the race officers liking so he kept the fleet ashore – also to protect us from the 35° blazing heat. The Aussies were elbowing their way to the club bar when the cat-in-the-hat flag came down – at 4:30pm! The Southern Ocean wind had won: big time… The race started in a 25-knot wind that got stronger. Multiple capsizes, breakages and torn sails forced many to shore. For the Aussies it was just another day on the water! Top worlds teams trailed behind local sailors – an unusual scenario at a World Championship. We were flying around mid-fleet when we got knocked down by a sudden gust on the second spinnaker reach. It took us a while to right the boat, then we trailed the rest of the race. In the second race, we sailed conservatively and survived at the gybe mark weaving between 4 capsized boats. On our second upwind leg, we crossed tacks at high speed with now-familiar rivals, passing Irish friends on the downwind, but getting nipped by the French at the finish line, crossing 32nd. The sun set as tired fireball sailors clambered up the beach into the dinghy park at 8:30pm. We rounded up Team Ireland and brought them home for a delicious Tasmanian salmon dinner cooked by Dee.
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Two races today with no delays! The first started with winds of 12 knots, but by the finish we were back pushing 18 knots. We stayed pointy side up all day but had trouble getting our settings right and felt unable to turn on our best speed. Results were at least consistent: 35th and 36th. Mark & Evelyn as well as Mianne & Clay got caught by the very tight time limit expiry, giving them high scores. Eric and Kelly had a capsize mishap that gave Eric a deep cut on his head. The on-water response team was excellent. He was transported to hospital and got bandaged, stitched-up and released. He’ll hopefully be back on the water soon!
The regatta has a fun social agenda. Each day features recognition of certain sailors, volunteers and sponsors. On this day, father/son teams got up on stage and we were with eight other family teams. Then at evening prize-giving they recognized teenagers in the event – the youngest being a 15-year old female Swiss helm. Today I exchanged club burgees in a ceremony with the friendly RGYC Vice-Commodore.
We’ve been warned that racing tomorrow might be hindered by a series of electrical storms and super-strong winds, so we might be held ashore.
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Yep, races were cancelled today due to severe weather. Liam and I spent the down time replacing a main halyard cleat that had been slipping, replacing a jib downhaul cleat, and calibrating and marking the Aussie-style jib fairleads that have been confounding us.
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Back to the club again today on what was supposed to be a lay day. Instead we had two races to make up for yesterday’s cancellation. The wind blew 15-20 knots – enough to tip over several boats and cause problems. After 6 days of sailing, we’re getting better and responding quicker to gusts and shifts in these big winds. On one high reach, everyone got knocked by a header and couldn’t make the mark. So, we did our first ever ‘Aussie Drop’, then could point up enough to get to the gybe mark, hoist the kite the rest of the way, and gybe, accelerating down to the leeward mark. We stayed upright all day and had some of our best speed. It finally showed in our results, with our first finishes in the 20s: a 29th then a 25th.
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This is the last day of Fireball Worlds. We had our worst day yesterday with capsizes in both races. Better news was that Kelly and Eric rejoined us on the water, although Eric doesn’t look himself with head encased in gauze, shower cap and helmet!
We had our best-ever day today in races 9 & 10. Getting 10 races in the series was significant because it allows dropping of your two worst races, and we all had two poor results to drop! Our starts were best-ever in both races and we held our lane well and got to the windward mark with the front group. Staying with that gang is tough, as every little error allows several boats to pass. The winds were perfect at about 15 knots. Our close competitors, Frank and Ed from Ireland, Jean-Francois and son Alexis of France, and the Aussie husband & wife team of Suzanna and Andrew were near us all day, but we managed to inch ahead of them by the end of the day with 26th and 19th placings. It was exciting to finish a Worlds race in the top 20 for the first time. Mianne and Clay did it too, with an even-better 16th place finish in race 9!
Our final overall placing is 34th, so we’ve achieved our pre-regatta performance goal of a mid-30th result! And more importantly, we had a great holiday In Oz with my wife and two sons, and special time with other sailors.
Brits and Aussies locked up the top ten of the leaderboard. Incredible sailors all! A few Swiss, French, and Czech teams made it into the top thirty. As for our fellow North Americans, Mianne & Clay came 43rd overall. Mark and Evelyn looked flashy in their flame-covered red boat, but were plagued by equipment failures, placing 50th. Kelly and Eric missed races due to injury, but then valiantly re-joined, finishing the regatta in 55th.
The Aussies also use an interesting system involving time comparisons of every boat against the race leader, with calibrations cumulative as each race occurs. It identifies the boat that has improved the most between the beginning and end of the regatta. And Liam and I won that fairly handily! What a nice treat to get that unexpected recognition and the award at the excellent prize-giving banquet.
Next Fireball Worlds Championship is at the famous sailing venue of Lake Garda, Italy, August 2025…. Hmm… Pasta anyone?
Diamonds, precious gems, and Fireballs. They’re all rare and desirable items. So… just how CAN you get a FIREBALL? Well, here are five (and a half) options.
Option 1:CLASSIC ($). Get an older (pre-1990s) Fireball. They’re readily-available on Kijiji and similar buy/sell sites. The boat may need some refurbishing but that’s fun, right? If well-rigged, these classics can be competitive in light and medium winds. Some championship regattas have a special award for top classic boat.
Option 2:RARE GEM ($$). Find a second-hand modern Fireball, meaning one built since the mid-1990s. These boats have fast design features like a wider bow, flatter rocker, and efficient rigging. Some from Europe and Australia have found their way to our shores. Others are North American amateur-built boats. Some of these boats change hands each year, often from older to younger sailors. Talk to your provincial or regional Fireball rep as they know where the boats are and what might be for sale.
Option 3: RORO ($$$). Find a second-hand modern Fireball on a trailer in UK, then buy it and have the seller deliver it to a vehicle RORO (roll-on-roll-off) port, such as Southampton. Then receive it at the Canadian RORO port in Halifax, or one of the US RORO ports, and trailer it home. Used modern Fireballs are more common and cheaper in UK, but you’ll have to pay for the RORO shipment. ‘Option 3a’ could be to get together with others and bring over a container-full of up to 10 used British boats.
Option 4:NEW ($$$$) Buy yourself a new boat! At the 2024 Fireball Worlds, Dave Hall, owner of Weathermark Fireballs, told me he can deliver new Fireballs to North America. Say what? Yes! He’ll piggyback it into a container with other boats, such as RS Aeros, being shipped from UK to North America. He has good relations with the other companies, and has shipped a Fireball to West Coast Sailing in Portland this way, and will do it again to a North American port. For those with the financial means you could have a championship boat delivered to your door! The other commercial builder in UK is Winder, whose boats are sold through the P&B Chandlery.
Option 5:BUILD ($$) Build a Fireball! Plans are available from your Fireball association. This requires skill and time. Before embarking upon such a journey, you should talk to one of the Canada/USA amateur builders, to learn about necessary tweaks to achieve modern-hull characteristics such as wider bow and flatter rocker.
