Where can I buy Mirror Plans or Kits?

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I'm looking to buy a set of Mirror plans or a kit. Searching on the internet has been a bit frustrating - folks using "Mirror" to lure you to their websites to sell their designs, etc.

Is it possible to buy a legitimate set of Mirror plans? A kit?

Thanks!

PuffinInTegel's picture

Hellos Swedegeek,
Welcome to the forum!
As the plans are held by the international sailing associations federation and the class rules state that only qualified manufacturers shall make kits or complete hulls, the plans are only given to such organisations/companies, who then pay royalties for each kit or boat sold. To be qualified, an organisation has to have adequate equipment and has to produce a sample that is then inspected and measured to make sure it meets class rules.
Some people have simply taken the measurements off an old hull and or used parts of an old hull to make templates.
The Japanese class association has put up a set of dimension drawings that might be used. I believe that some folks have resorted to these when building scale models, but I suppose you could use them for a full-sized boat, too. If you're not going to engage in "official" class regattas, being slightly out of tolerances is no problem.
Here's the discussion with the links to the drawings from Japan: https://mirrordiscussforum.org/Drupal_02/node/16 .
The "official" list of suppliers is on the World Sailing technical pages:
https://sailing.org/classesandequipment/MIR.php . Click on "Suppliers" there.
I was surprised to see a Danish group listed there as being in the prototyping stage. You could enquire whether they intend to make kits or just GRP hulls.
Winder boats seems to have stopped making kits, the Belgian company is a only a GRP manufacturer too. In fact, Trident is the only company in Europe that still sells kits, as far as I know.
Andrius Stanaitis from Lithuania is not a member of this forum, but often posts on Facebook "People who love Mirror sailing dinghies". I shall ask him whether he intends to produce kits or just GRP hulls.
I hope this information has helped !
Cheers,
Gernot H.

I really appreciate you taking the time to share all the info!

The Japanese info would probably be enough for me - I'm not interested in racing, just want a dinghy to use.

I'm located in Seattle in the US - is there anyone making kits/hulls/completed boats in the US? Where are the active Mirror fleets in the US?

Thanks again!

PuffinInTegel's picture

To find out where the US Mirrors which I have found are, simply open the roll call file (https://mirrordiscussforum.org/documents/mirror_rollcall.pdf) and search (CTRL+"f") for "USA". I have counted 49, whereby at least two were up for sale and if sold, the new owners have not notified me. The hot-spot is in the Ohio/Great Lakes area and I suspect that there used to be a kit manufacturer there.
If you refer to the thread https://mirrordiscussforum.org/Drupal_02/node/552 , you can see that there was a person who'd qualified as a kit manufacturer. I've no idea whether it would be possible for him to pass on the plans "inofficially" to you. Of course this would not be totally kosher from a copyright aspect.
Cheers,
Gernot

I own 50361 that I restored recently. I'm in Seattle near Garfield high School. Would be happy to show and tell the boat anytime you're interested.
There aren't many Mirrors in the US these days, since the few providers of kits have stopped producing. They are particularly rare here on the West coast. It's likely that the one I have drifted down to Washington State from British Columbia at some point in its life. When I saw this one come up for sale on Craigslist a few years back I felt obligated to buy it and give it a new life.

Cheers,
James