Who's got the oldest Mirror still in use?

The group "People who love Mirror sailing dinghies" has been joined by a lady who owns "Amazon" with sail number 1529. If that really is also the hull number, she has the fourth-oldest boat on the roll call, since #1 does not count as she is a museum display and, I assume, never sailed any more. I have very little information on the other three boats, #3, 14, and 773 .
Any one else got a real vintage craft with a four-or-less digit hull/sail number not yet on the roll call?

Cheers,

Gernot H.

Just bought a mirror with a sail that used to belong to 12811, but the old number was changed to 161 at some point. It seems unlikely to me given the state of the hi that this the Hull is either of these, so I would like to find the number on the transom but I can't find it, nor do I know exactly where to look. Is it always in the same place? Does anyone have any pictures of their transom number so I can see roughly where it should be?

Also when people say the mk 1 had no storage, are they referring to those two holes cut in the (not sure what this is called) "fore-wall" of the cockpit?

The number should be on the inside of the transom on the visible part above the rear buoyancy tank, and the digits should be large enough to be obvious. If they aren't, they've either been sanded off (possibly for reasons of theft) or the whole transom has been replaced. (I wouldn't worry about the small possibility of it being a stolen hull - it's too late now for that to matter as such thefts are ancient history, and it's much more important that boats are simply preserved and used.)

The Mk 1 Mirror lacked those holes in the "fore-wall" (I don't know what to call it either), although they could potentially be added to a Mk 1 Mirror. (I saw a picture of a Mk 1 front tank opened up recently and it looks as if the next "wall" nearer the bow doesn't go the whole way across, which means that it would need to be replaced as well to seal off the rest of the buoyancy tank if holes were added to the "fore-wall" of a Mk 1 boat.)

Another Mk 1 feature is the lack of inner gunwale support round the top - there's a fat strip of wood added round the rim on the outside to provide strength, and on the Mk 2 there's another of these on the inside to double the thickness, making the edge more comfortable to sit on and adding a lot more strength, though again this has been added to some Mk 1 boats.

Another feature of the Mk 1 is a structural piece of wood that sticks up through (I think) the side tanks somewhere aft of the thwart, the top being curved and the highest part connecting to the side up to the gunwale - it's highly unlikely that this would be removed on any modified Mk 1 hull, so if that isn't there either, you can be sure you've got a Mk 2.

I'm not sure if these are the the structural bits youre talking about but it seems like the inner gunwhale support is there

https://photos.app.goo.gl/TgvPijpLE8hZBD5G9

So I found the hull number, however it looks a bit weird. For a start its upside down (you can see the serifs on the ones) so the middle number is a 9 not a 6. Secondly if you look closely it looks like there was a number before the first one that has been mostly sanded away. It looks very similar to the 9 so maybe it was originally hull number 9191?

https://photos.app.goo.gl/bkqzsm2eTWkGx5n68

Do you have any photos of those structural bits David? I'm still pretty bad with nautical lingo so a photo would be super useful!

PuffinInTegel's picture

Mystery number
The leading 1 is not upside down, but as the second 1 has no serifs, maybe a former owner touched up the number with the serifs. The imprint on my boat's transom is quite faint and I've thought about making it more clear, too. Another possibility is that the transom bit was taken from another boat and the owner put the original boat number on the replacement, but couldn't quite obliterate the other number.

that would make sense as it looks like there are some other faint markings beneath the current number. I can see serifs on both 1's, and both on the way that would make it 191, but at this point I've stared at it so long I'm not really sure what I'm seeing anymore! Either way 161 or 191 would be mk 1, and although I need to double check that with someone who knows what they're on about, I'm almost certain I have a mk 2.

PuffinInTegel's picture

Look at my picture here, the numbering (62816) starts well to the right (left in the picture) of the mainsheet block. I doubt that different manufacturers used widely differing locations for the numbers so it's more likely that the the leading digits have been obliterated and that your boat could be ?161 or even ??161. With a bit of imagination, one could even read it as ?181 or ??181.
hull number 62816
Cheers,
Gernot H.

Hi, I have mirror 373, a mark 1 built in 1963. Thought you may like to add it to your role call.
I am wondering what to do with her, I've had her from the 1980s when I raced it with my brother in Suffolk. She was old then, but very light so quite quick! My kids are into fast skiff boats and have no interest in sailing her so I am thinking about putting her up for sale. Could anyone recommend the best place to do this? I would like her to go to a real enthusiast given her age. I have all the original bits, measurement certificate and sails with white numbers.

It's good that you're thinking about this now rather than leaving her to be sold in a rush some day, as so often happens. The best place to advertise a boat of this kind would be the Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/groups/16537332977/ - "People who love Mirror sailing dinghies" (and it would be worth joining Facebook just to access that group if you haven't already signed up to it). Some of us certainly would like to have a Mk1 Mirror if we had the storage space to keep it in, but it's that last part that's the problem, though people's circumstances change over time, which is why it's a good idea to keep the boat on offer for a long time (stretching into years rather than months) and keep the price high enough to guarantee that anyone who buys her is going to be serious about looking after her properly. Having all the original stuff should make your boat an appealing prospect.

PuffinInTegel's picture

Welcome RosieB!
If you want to find a new home for the boat, put up a correspoding note on that section of this forum. There is also a "Dinghies and dinghy bits for sale" group on Facebook and if you're prepared to register on the UK Mirror web site (I assume you're in the UK) then you can post your offer there as well.
We do appreciate sellers adding a note to inform readers when the boat has subsequently been sold.
Cheers,
Gernot H.

curlew's picture

When I bought my boat, M37755, I was given some extra sails for it. I gave these to a friend and when he used them we found the number was M007! Quite old.
David

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