New (old) boat

DavidH's picture
Submitted by DavidH on Thu, 09/02/2021 - 11:24

Forums:

Picked my boat up yesterday.

Number: 69702.
Owner: David Holland.
Name: Lutra. Lutra-lutra is the Eurasian otter, and our local otters here in Mid-Wales. It is also a conveniently short call-sign for VHF as and when I need to use it.
Dark blue hull (previously red I believe), varnished topsides. White rudder and daggerboard. Matching sail and hull number.

The boat is solid, with original polyester taping. Sails are good.
Lengthening the short oars is a Winter project. Or I may just by a set of new oars. Otherwise she's good to go, and will be put onto the water in a week or so.
Cheers,
David
Lutra

PuffinInTegel's picture

PuffinInTegel

Tue, 09/07/2021 - 20:35

A well-preserved 69### boat should provide you with lots of good sailing without too much "renovation" work.
As to the subject of oars - I was out rowing on past Saturday (no or very little wind, so I left the rig ashore) and became aware of the fact that although the "normal" Mirror oars I now use are more satisfactory than the short ones I made myself many moons ago, in as far as length outside of the hull goes, it would be better to have longer and perhaps heavier inboard sections. There has been some debate about oar lengths in the facebook Dinghy Cruising Association group, if you're interested, you could try finding that discussion.
Looking forward to any further contributions on the subject!
Greetings
Gernot

DavidH's picture

DavidH

Wed, 09/08/2021 - 10:54

Thanks for replying Gernot,
Very happy with the boat - I believe that longer oars will make rowing the Mirror much more enjoyable. The current oars are slightly less than 6', so although I feel duty-bound to try them, I don't think they will be much use.
My choices are to scarf-joint a length of heavier wood for the inboard section of each oar, or just buy some new 8' oars.
Then there is the question of strengthening the gunwale, which I have an idea about, but have yet to try it out.
I'm not on FB so cannot follow the discussion on there. I'm very happy to update on here when I'm a little further forward.
Cheers,
David
Lutra

PuffinInTegel's picture

PuffinInTegel

Wed, 09/08/2021 - 13:25

I'm no expert on the subject, but looking at racing skulls, I notice that the rowers' hands are close together or even overlapped at the middle of the stroke. With my present oars which seem to be the standard ones provided with a Mirror kit (I was given them when I brokered the sale of 53411*, the new owner didn't want them), the collars are in a position where the outboard section feels roughly correct, but my arms are quite wide apart and lifting the blades out and holding them up during the return stroke seems to take too much effort for long rowing passages. So lightening the blade end and lengthening (and perhaps adding weight to) the handle end would make sense. The downside is storage, I suppose.
Scarfing would have to be done close to the pivot point which means at the poin to fmaximum bending moment, so it would have to be a very strong scarf !

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzlkMhyb0oA .

DavidH's picture

DavidH

Wed, 09/08/2021 - 16:25

I think the scarf would be fine. It may be better to buy new oars and shave a little off the outboard sections to lighten them.

PuffinInTegel's picture

PuffinInTegel

Sat, 09/25/2021 - 10:11

Hi David,
I'm glad to read that you've enjoyed the maiden sail!
Your boat has now been entered as I am taking the opportunity of a lazy vacation day to update the file.
Whereas I can generate the PDF version here, I'm not sure whether I'll succeed in uploading it, since the internet connection is patchy at best.
Greetings,
Gernot