With dwindling numbers overall in the Alberta Fireball fleet this year and prior family commitments keeping the Tichkowsky clan at home, we were only 4 boats registered and so, consequently, we were lumped in with the x-class monohulls.  Competitors included Frank Crawford and Sean Holmes-Smith, Debbie Kirkby and Gregg Ferguson, Hamish and Francis Ferguson and Chris Lemke.  Chris had a friend new to sailing out with him for the first two races, and then came out with his young son Nathan, 7yrs old, at the helm in a 13 knot wind.  Nathan frequently takes the helm on his father’s San Juan 21 for a Wednesday night sail but it was impressive to see him steering so steadily in so much wind.  Regrettably, they did capsize and were forced to go ashore.

Saturday morning, the winds were light and we managed only one race before the wind went through a 90 degree shift and the whole course needed repositioning so we adjourned for lunch.  The afternoon brought a stronger breeze and 4 more races were had using a windward-leeward course with between 1 and 3 laps.  Competition was close between the top three boats with each one capturing a first and also finding the 3^rd spot.

Sunday had slightly lighter wind and three more races were run.  The lead boats were not always secure and more than once the trailing boat was able to pass for the win.  In the end Debbie and Gregg found their new Winder to be fast and captured 5 firsts to win the event.  Frank and Sean were very strong and won when the wind was up but Hamish and Francis (now both over 60 and still strong and competitive) could not be counted out as a threat at any time.

The final results were Debbie and Gregg in 1^st, Frank and Sean in 2^nd and Hamish and Francis in 3^rd with Chris and crews in 4^th.

The US Nationals were hosted by the Pymatuning Yacht Club on July 2-4 in conjunction with their annual Independence Day Regatta and was almost the perfect regatta.  Although Friday was to have been the first day of racing for the Fireballs, a rare east wind blew in off the lake. That is never a good thing on Pymatuning.  The wind never came up in any consistent manner and when it did look like the fleet might go out the wind just dropped to nothing in a matter of moments.  The race committee postponed the racing for the day in hopes of a better day on Saturday.  Most of the participants had their boats rigged and ready to go except for Mike McEvoy who welcomed the delay as he spent the entire day rigging a new mast and setting up his boat which he just got back from Barbados.  For dinner that night we all headed into Jamestown to eat at Carini’s and then walked across the street to sample 24 flavors of homemade soft ice cream at the local ice cream shop.