GRP Mirror, Mk2 interior, as yet no sail number

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Hi, I bought a GRP Mirror (Bell Ferranti, I think) this week from a chap who comes on holiday regularly here in Anglesey. The problem I've got, besides the dinghy needing a little fettling, is that it doesn't appear to have any way of identifying the hull number. I did a quick internet search and the ukmirrorsailing site came up with a table showing how to tell the age of your Mirror by sail number. According to this table, my hull should have a hull number beginning 68*** - 69***. The two sails that were given to me with the dinghy were 64799 and 47459. The gentleman who sold me the Mirror had 47459, next to the one I bought and that number was inscribed on the transom. He also gave me the spare rudder for 47459 (number inscribed on rudder stock) I assumed that 64799 was the correct number but this now looks wrong. There is just the slightest shadow of a zero on the timber thwart (maybe **0**) but not much help. The thwart looks like it's been well sanded and varnished with a coloured woodstain.

Can anyone tell me please, if there's any way of identifying her from a hull number located elsewhere on the hull? I've had a quick look around the hull and there's nothing obvious. She came with aluminium mast and timber boom and gaff spar (Gunter rig), although this may or may not be original. She has a timber lower skeg.

Many thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Regards
Paul

Do you have the web address of this table? If you look it up by sail number, I'm puzzled as to why it would convert from that to a different hull number, so I'd like to see how it works.

Hi David,
Thanks for your reply
the table is at
http://www.ukmirrorsailing.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article...

The reason I believe the sail numbers I have are not correct for the hull I have, is that the earliest GRP hulls made by Bell Ferranti had sail numbers beginning 68076 (introduced in 1986, according to the table on the above link). There is also a link in the table for "Bell/Ferranti all GRP Hulls introduced", which gives more detail on some of the features of the GRP Mirror. Some examples are that later hulls had timber thwarts, rather than GRP and a wooden drip stop above the storage areas, below the foredeck. Also, the hull description and the addition of a timber lower skeg are all correct for my dinghy.

Again, according to the discription, hulls with timber thwarts sometimes had the hull number inscribed onto the wood. My hull has a feint shadow of a "0" at roughly the centre of the thwarts but nothing visible either side of it. This would lead me to the assumption that the hull number is 680**, possibly 690** or even 700**. The youngest hull the author has come across is 70088.

The latest sail number supplied with the Mirror is 64799, which, according to the table would predate the introduction of the GRP hull. Hope this explains my assumptions. Do you have a GRP Mirror or ply?
Regards
Paul

I've found the sailnumber 64799 on a Mirror called Dolphin in 2007: http://www.ukmirrorsailing.com/index.php?option=com_kunena&func=view&cat... - there's just a chance that the owner HannahJ may know something about how you ended up with sails from that boat, and it's possible that your boat was in the same club at one time and is recorded there with its real number. Perhaps she has posted other information on that forum which might pin down the location of her club... Oh, but a later link from Google is to Hunts SC where 65799 appears again along with the names Hannah Rose and Hannah Hutchings ( https://huntssc.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=21&Item... )

If there's connection between her or her club (or part of the country) and the person who sold the boat to you, there may be information recorded somewhere there (e.g. race results) that could include your hull's number. There will come a time when artificial intelligence has documented all things that can be documented (drawing on people's recollections of boats they've raced against and on photos), so the day may come when all boats that still exist can be traced (very few GRP ones will have been destroyed), leaving just a few numbers (known to have been on GRP boats) without hulls and a few GRP hulls without numbers, at which point it may be possible to assign one to your boat with a high degree of probability. The shadow of a zero plus geographical connections will help narrow this down tightly. You may have a long wait before that happens though.

It's a long shot, but it's not beyond possibility that photographing the thwart through infra-red or ultraviolet filters (both of which look black to the eye - you need the type that transmit only those frequencies rather than the see-through kind that block them instead) might show up numbers that are invisible to the human eye. Using an ultraviolet light source and trying it from many different angles may also make a difference. For this reason, be careful not to destroy or damage the evidence (the surface of the thwart) until you've had a chance to try this out.

Any information you can get from the person who sold you the boat could also be vital, and just knowing the part of the country he's from would go a long way to narrowing things down. The other sail number could also be important in that regard, and even though Google appears to know nothing of it, it may be recorded in race results and have some connection with your boat by being in the same club at some point in its history.

(The only Mirror I have at the moment is a pile of remnants of rotting wood living a new life as a home for insects in the garden, but I'm looking out for a new hull, preferably GRP as I want to use it on long journeys without the risk of it splitting along the seams in a heavy sea like my wooden Mirror did.)

Thanks very much for that David. You've gone to a great deal of trouble. I had considered using an ultraviolet light source to enhance an image of the thwart. I think I have an ultraviolet filter as part of a set of filters for my bridge camera. I'm not certain of the frequency though. My wife occasionally using a uv tanning lamp that I might procure for the purposes of photographing the thwart under a direct uv light source. I'll have to do a little research to find any suitable infra red filter.

I will, of course, be protecting the thwart from any impulse I have to restore or replace it before I've exhausted all avenues of enquiry.

I have the contact details of the gentleman that sold me the Mirror. I know he lives in Liverpool and he mentioned that the boat had been in his possession for a couple of years. He also said that he bought it in the London area. I'll speak to him tomorrow to find out if he can narrow the search area down further. If he can remember the sellers name or even a club; all the better. I'm pretty certain that he bought both Mirrors separately a year or so apart.

I'll update this post as I find additional information. I hope you are successful in you hunt for a GRP Mirror. I wanted a boat that I could single hand when my sailing partner wasn't available to sail our Wayfarer. I had this romantic notion when I started looking, that I'd find a basically sound plywood boat that needed a little work to get it seaworthy. The reality was that all the good condition boats that came up for sale were invariably several hundred miles away. It was by pure chance that I saw my one on Gumtree. It was advertised under a Liverpool location but, upon reading the ad further, it mentioned that it was being stored 10 minutes away from me, near Sandy Beach, Llanfacraeth, here on Anglesey. It proved to be something of a challege to get it home, as the the near side trailer wheel bearing suffered a seizure after a mile from the pick up point. Luckily for me, the seller came out to me straight away with a tool kit and a tin of WD40. Between us, we managed to free it up and use the still clean grease in the bearing hub to lubricate the dry bearing. It was enough to complete the journey anyway and I was grateful to Mike, the seller for following me all the way home. I've added new hubs, bearings and wheels/tyres to my shopping list.

Many thanks again for the information.
Regards
Paul

Don't spend any great amount of money on the UV or infra-red idea - it's just a long shot which is worth a go purely in case it works, but I have never heard of any case of it working (or even being tried) in a case like this, so it's purely down to chance - there's just a slim possibility that the sun may have made some kind of invisible (to our eyes) difference to the wood near the surface, just below where the numbers used to be and that it might be detectable.

It's more than possible that the boat was stolen at some point in its past and that the number was removed deliberately, so the trail may go cold after a couple of steps. It doesn't sound as if Mike is a thief though, so it would be best not to worry him with that idea. If it was stolen, it was likely insured and the value of the boat recovered, so solving the mystery may cause problems for people which would be best avoided (unless there's a chance of catching a thief, but they tend to be too good at covering their tracks). For that reason, you may want to abandon the search if it begins to look dodgy, but hopefully there will be a more innocent explanation for the number removal. From the racing point of view, it's unlikely that you'll be able to use your boat at championship level (unless you can find its original number and documentation), but it's also unlikely that it would ever be prevented from racing at club level as it's clearly a genuine Mirror - you can just use the number on the sail. The most important thing is to enjoy sailing it and not let any worries about its history get in the way of that.

I realise that it's a long shot that uv or infra red will work but worth a try. It won't cost anything as I already have some rudimentary equipment. It had crossed my mind that the boat may have fallen victim to theft.

On a lighter note, I contacted Hunts SC today and had a long conversation on Messenger with HannahJ, now Hannah Rose. It's turns out that she administers their website. She wasn't able to enlighten me on how her boat's original sail found its way onto my Mirror but she did have some great pictures of her boat, "Dolphin", clearly showing the sail number.

Her former SC club is in London and this ties into Mike's account of where he bought the boat. It's unfortunate but I think that, through a series of circumstances, the dinghy became separated from its rigging. Admittedly, this may have been through theft of the rigging or the boat. Alternatively, there may be a perfectly innocent explanation; either way, it doesn't alter what I have...a bit of a mongrel but a good useable dinghy. You're dead right; I should be concentrating on enjoying the sailing, rather than opening up a can of worms. I've decided that, if I give the Mirror a name (it's not been previously named) it with divert my attention from its checkered history and allow it to begin a new chapter as regularly sailed, Anglesey boat. My son has suggested "Yoho Ahoy", which is my current favourite but if something comes to mind, more appropriate, that may change. All suggestions gratefully received.
Regards,
Paul

If it was stolen then, it was likely a long time ago - a boat stolen in the London area probably wouldn't be sold on again anywhere near there, so the odds of there being an innocent explanation for the removal of the number are improved considerably (although it's still a strange thing to do, but it's possible that it was left uncovered a lot and the thwart's top was heavily sun-and-rain-damaged). What I'd do is get on with sailing the boat while still making a reasonable effort to follow any leads that might uncover its past, then if it ever gets to a point where it becomes clear that it was stolen and if the victim of that theft can be identified, I'd speak to them to find out what the position is - if it was insured, the problem would have been sorted out long ago and it would be best to let sleeping dogs lie (because all that would happen otherwise is that the insurance company would claim the boat back and sell it on at a loss to some random person - given the price of old boats today and the cost of moving them around, it would be more trouble to them than it's worth), but even if it wasn't insured, it's highly likely that the original owner would want you to go on sailing it and he/she would feel a lot better about the issue finally being resolved, and who knows, the boat might even be passed back and forth over time between the two families down the generations.

As for a name, I don't want to suggest anything - I think it's best if a boat name speaks solely about the owners without any external influences, although it's definitely worth asking people if they think a name's okay or awful before you actually paint it on the side. Anyway, just get out on the water and have fun.

All the best,

David.

Thanks for all your comments and advice David. As soon as I get a minute to myself I'll be outside replacing the trailer hubs, bearings and wheels before starting work on the dinghy. I didn't have any luck with the uv light; it did intensify the image of the "0" but didn't reveal any additional digits. The trail is cold for now but, after a suggestion from Hannah Rose, I contacted TridentUK, to see if they inherited any hull data when they started making the new FRP hulls. I'm waiting for a reply. I'll update this post if anything news surfaces.
Thanks again
All the best
Paul