The International Fireball

Tom Gruitt

The International Fireball is a development class of racing sailboats that allows builders to incorporate new technology and a variety of rigging options (such as the trapeze shown in use), enabling sailors to stretch the limits of their abilities.

The International Fireball and its friendly network of members have earned the class a reputation for being competitive—but without losing its sense of fun. This two-man high-performance racing sloop (16′ 2″ LOA, 4′ 6″ beam) excels in wind conditions of 15–20 mph, conditions that make some other small-boat classes take shelter.In 1962, Peter Milne designed the International Fireball to be an exciting and responsive one-design that could be built by an amateur woodworker. In this age of high-cost building composites, the Fireball remains one of the few high-performance one-designs that allow the builder to construct a hull from scratch using wood (prefabricated fiberglass hulls are also available). Over 15,000 boats and 50 years later, the class is everything the designer could have hoped for.