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Posted by Dave White On July 6th I posted a message stating that the US Nationals were finalized and the dates where posted for August 4-6 at Pyamtuning Sailing Club. The message is still on the board. The Nationals were suppose to be held out west someplace this year as it was their turn to host so we let them take care of it but ecasue of attending the Worlds Peter and Alan decided they would rather let the nationals be held back here in the east again as they were busy with making preparations for the Wolrds, and I can see their point. The problem is we didn't have any club interested in hosting them and there were several suggestions on where and how to handle them. At the last minute Pymatuning agreed to host them but the regatta had to be put together rather quickly as they have their schedule and hosting a major regatta was not on that schedule. As i urned out we had 11 boats register and sail. Two boats made the trip up from Florida and the other nine were basically local boats but a very competetive group. Pat Crump won the regatta but he was beat in three different races by three different boats maing the top four boats very tight through the second day. Going into the last day the second through fourth place boats were seperated by two points. The second part of the fleet were just as competetive on their level so the racing and the event turned out to be great. PSC held a steak and corn roast type diner on Saturday and again for something that had to be put together at the last minute it ended up being one of the best Nationals in recent years. Now the issue still remains that i did post this event back in the beginning of July and the message board was silent until a week before then a James asked who was attending. A Cal asked about info and Pat and I both answered him and he ended up attending. As far as promoting a class. In 1998 there wasn't one Fireball to be found on Pymatuning or Lake Erie or south of the Canadian Border until Charleston and Florida. Now we have the largest fleet of Fireballs in the US with ten boats, nine of which sailed in at the Nationals. Alan Boeve, and Peter Wirth sent me a mailing list of boats in the western rgion which counts out at nine but I don't know how active they are at the present moment but they all have responded to e-mails and mailings that I have sent them via a newsletter. There is a group of semi active boats around Viginia depending on the event and the group from Flroida is very active and now growing with their numbers increasing to three boats. If you are a US Fireball concerned about promoting the class please respond back with your address and phone number so I can send you a US membership form and put you on our mailing so we can keep you informed. The class is a tough class to sell and promote in these days of youth Laser Championships, skiff and sport boats, and competeing with older more established classes that have done a better job of keeping their class active like the Lighting Class or Thistle Class in our area. If you are not a US Fireball, and I mean no disrepect to my Canadian neighbors as they have helped me through the years and I do repect their organization. But if you are then I suggest to keep your coments to yourself as your negative tone is what ruined the class in the first place and we have no room for criticism just for the sake of criticizing. I'm not new to Fireballs as I can trace my involvement back to 1970 and have seen the class go from 79 boats at the 1976 Nationals to four at the 2002 Nationals. This year we had 11 US boats at our Nationals and we still have to get more the guys from out west to come here and we have to get the guys from here to go out there next year. In closing, I use to coach High School Football and one of my head coaches I worked for once told me not to take critical fans to seriously. He said the stands are full of guys who know better then you how to coach, the tough part is getting them to put down their hot dogs and showing up at practices to help. Dave White US Firball Association Secretary/Treasurer
on 8/8/2006, 6:51 am, in reply to "US Nationals"
207.255.121.172
Jim,
--Previous Message--
: Come on you guys! You have a national
: regatta and no one can find out
: anything about it. No regatta info
: or results. Or if they are there,
: they sure are hard to find. If you
: want to promote the class, you have
: to do better than you are doing.
:
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