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. 

Saturday still greeted everybody with light winds but coming from a westerly direction. It would build steadily throughout the day and the race committee managed to get two races in on Saturday afternoon.  Mike McEvoy and his crew, Lainey White, showed everybody the proper way to get around the race course in Race 1 with the team of Duncan Schaefer and Mike Reid right on his transom.  Rune Lausten and Jochen Mikosch took third while Dave White,  with a young Laser sailor named Chris as his crew, managed to place fourth ahead of Peter Wirth and Graham Schaefer  who took fifth and sixth place.  The next race saw a real surprise as Graham Schaefer jumped out to the lead at the weather mark in his vintage 20 year old home built wooden wonder and managed to lead the entire group for much of the first triangle until Duncan and Mike got by on the final weather leg.  Duncan and Mike ended the day in a tie for first place with Rune and Jochen in third followed by Peter Wirth and Graham Schaefer tied for fourth place.  Dave White, Phil Pepera and Cal Cotton rounded out the remaining places in that order. 

 Pymatuning’s Thistle fleet hosted the annual cocktail party and everybody got limbered up to eat a chicken and pork dinner with all the trimmings plus as many brownies for desert as anyone could want.  Right after that the DJ began to spin tunes which lasted to midnight while the State Park had a fireworks display shooting off of the dam over the lake in celebration of the 4th of July holiday.    Everybody agreed that we needed at least one more race on Sunday to break the ties and once again although the wind began light and shifty the race committee did a great job in postponing the races until the wind filled in more from the west and then sent us out to the best racing of the weekend.  

After an OCS start Mike McEvoy found himself having to sail up through the fleet to finish third while Duncan Schaefer took another first.  Jochen finished second and once again Dave White managed to beat Peter Wirth right at the finish.  Graham Schaefer was sixth.  Cal Cotton was 7th while Phil Pepara had equipment issues which forced him out.

The race committee had one more race in them so everybody lined up for what would be the deciding race for this year's Nationals.  Once again Graham Schaefer showed everybody that the age of one's boat has nothing to do with speed if the boat is sailed right as he rounded the weather mark first followed by Duncan, Peter and Mike.  Several mistakes on the next weather beat put Duncan in 4th place at the finish behind his son and Jochen.   Mike took first place for the race and the National title followed by Duncan Schaefer and Mike Reid in second place and Jochen and Rune rounding out the top three places. 

Everybody enjoyed a cookout on the club's front lawn before packing up and heading home.  Congratulations to all who made the effort to participate and special congratulations to Mike McEvoy and Lainey White on being the 2010 US National Champions!