Fireball Class

Fireball!

This week’s boat class feature celebrates the Fireball dinghy.  While not the most interesting of the logos and insignia out there, (a basic large red circle), it does a great job communicating the boat class even from far away.  This boat class is representative of an amazing part of grassroots sailing: the plywood backyard build.

The Fireball was designed in 1962 by Peter Milne as a high-performance racing dinghy.  Sailed doublehanded, this design features a trapeze and symmetric spinnaker.  However, another bold design feature is the beautiful, hard chined hull.  It is this simple, lofted planar hull that has allowed for the handy-person turned sailor to build a specification hull with marine plywood and simple tools.  The Optimist, Mirror, and Merlin are a few of the other dinghy classes with simplified designs and construction methods that has allowed them to also thrive.  By making the most expensive part of the boat in your backyard, it radically lowers to barriers to entry.  There now over 15,000 hulls registered worldwide.

The adaptable Fireball design has also allowed for a range of team weights to successfully sail it.  It can easily be sailed by mixed teams with little impact to performance.  This feature has allowed for the class to thrive and it remains a popular boat class sailed internationally with annual world championships held in many unique locations.

We encourage you to read more on this special dinghy class:

http://www.fireball-international.com/the-boat/

https://sailboatdata.com/sailboat/fireball

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fireball_(dinghy)

https://www.yachtsandyachting.co.uk/equipment/boat-tests/fireball-review/