The boat we tested had pretty much everything fitted and at first sight looked like it might need a lot of fiddling and twiddling expertise. Tacktick Micro Compass, Harken ratchet blocks for the spinnaker sheets and a push-and-pull Harken traveller strut on the foredeck are all part of the optional go-faster armoury. The boat is fully calibrated, weight corrected, measured and supplied with Pinnell and Bax Dacron sails as standard, but can be custom finished and fitted to owner requirements - the level of cost and complexity is down to you. The jib sheeting angle is fully adjustable, with lower mast bend controlled by chocks. Most standard fittings on the Winder Fireball are by Harken, with 16:1 kicker and 14:1 jib halyard tension and virtually all rig controls accessible by the helm. A standard polyester gelcoat provides good colour choice and make repairs easy, while the inner and outer skins of the hull around the bowtank are Kevlar reinforced to ensure it will keep punching through anything. The Winder construction is not rocket science but is well proven, with an epoxy foam sandwich hull and deck that is vacuum bonded and oven baked. Not so good for repeat business, but great for the class which now has competitive boats spread right through the fleet. Unlike the old plywood boats which stayed fast for three years at most before going floppy, Guy reckons a modern hull is so sturdy that it should be fully competitive for a decade or more. Guy says his latest model is the product of 40 years of refinement, leading to the current virtual one-design hull with rig and controls that are rated by the sailors as ‘totally sorted.’ They are also rated to be light, stiff and low on maintenance. Having won 37 world, European and UK national titles in 17 years, Winder Fireballs seem to make up a large chunk of the entry at any event. Guy Winder of Winder Boats began building the Fireball in the mid 1980s and reckons he’s been steadily producing around 25 new boats every year. No one was able to better that shape and all the major Fireball builders now use moulds from the Delange hull plugs - which makes the modern hull an effective one-design. This effectively came to an end when the Australian builder Peter Delange produced a Fireball with a more buoyant flared bow in the mid 1980s. Due to the DIY aspect of Fireball building, Peter Milne had allowed small tolerances in shape which enabled the most skilled builders to tweak extra speed. Plywood hulls stayed popular for the first 20 years until professional builders began to combine plywood decks with glass sandwich hulls and eventually abandoned wooden decks altogether. The current boat looks similar to the original, but there have been big changes in materials, hull shape and equipment. Peter Milne designed the Fireball as a low cost flyer for simple marine plywood construction. Design and development Photo: Jeremy Evans Last year’s 40th anniversary saw the launch of Fireball 14838, while the first Fireball built has been owned and sailed by the same family for many years. Instead it looks friendly enough for any competent dinghy sailor to think ‘I could handle that,’ though - as with any competitive class - winning is another matter. The name Fireball implies that the boat enjoysfresh winds, but it’s not intimidating. The boat’s scow-style hull pretty much stands alone while its pinhead mainsail and symmetric spinnaker set it apart from current asymmetrics, while delivering just as much fun. The 2004 worlds start on New Year’s Day in Adelaide, come home to Teignmouth for 2005 then hop across to Canada in 2006. With 20 associations worldwide, the Fireball has a good international following and chooses some very attractive locations for its worlds - Thailand in 2000, Italy in 2001, Florida in 2002 and Kenya in 2003 when 20 boats made the trip from Britain. More than 70 boats attended this year’s nationals and there’s a choice of professional builders at home and abroad. Designer, Peter Milne - a former editor of Yachts and Yachting - still takes an interest in the class which is rolling along nicely. The Fireball still looks like a ball of fire. Photo: Jonathan Hoare courtesy of UKFA Archivist Chris Turner Jeremy Evans tests the latest boat built by Guy Winder to find out if a ’Ball can still blow you away… When it appeared over 40 years ago, the Fireball was hailed as a sensationally different racing dinghy.
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