Mirror 16

[davidh]

Jim,

Remember, as the Earl of Beaconsfield on famously said, that there are "lies, damned lies and statistics".

I doubt that I'd use the Bloody Mary as a benchmark for it is like trying to predict the winner of the Grand National - too many riders, to many pitfalls and a one off event that can always throw up the 'odd result'. Of course, this is in part the attraction of the event but from a mathematical analysis viewpoint I'd see it as flawed.

But back to the theme of the string - the Mirror 16. A lightweight, easily driven hull (for it's day) and an impressive sail plan. It is a long way from the Wayfarer, the boat it was meant to challenge, but at the same time it is a very different beast.

With the flattish hull form, in breeze, the M16 reminds one of the Phantom in the way it picks up the wave and transitions easily to early planing. Nice and pointy forward, the M16 is far from a bad boat. Offer it up against one of the contemporaries from today (let's say, just as an example, the Laser Stratos) and the older boat might just suggest that the 'progress' of the years has not all been to the good!

In another string I have already predicted that AG will get toasted at the stake for heresy - so to keep him good company here is another heretical comment.

Take the Mirror 14 hull shape (really easily constructed out of ply), rig a bowsprit and an asymmetric spinnaker and you'd have a lovely boat for UK coastal conditions. But hey.... why mess up such a good idea - what is wrong with conventional spinnakers - for handicap racing the ability to run deep can be a race winner.

Ivan - does your interest extend to the M14?

Dougal

[Nessa]

I did spend five minutes toying with the idea of an assymetric, but then common sense restored itself, plus the realisation it wouldn't be best for the racing we do at Hunts.

[jpa_wfsc]

To veer off topic a little:

We have Comet trios rigged with both assy and conventional spins. We sail on a lake - the conv spinnaker is always going to win races because 80% of the time there is not enough wind inland for the assy to develop a high VMg. Indeed on a non-planing run the trio not using a spinnaker but goose-winging will get to the leward bouy faster than sailed with the assy kite gybing for speed...

Last summer we did an expedition on the Solent in F4 and the Trios going up for power and VMG got downwind a lot slower than those that goosewinged the spinnaker and sailed a dead-run. They probably had more fun - but thats not the point.

So - are asymmetric boats faster around a course than a conventional boat (all other things made equal)? I'm not convinced.

Will anyone try this with a genuinely fast boat e.g. RS400 with a conventional kite sailing a typical ckub race against assy boats - who would win?

So - M16 and M14 I would stay with the conventional kite.

[Graham T]

I've always fancied a mirror 16 but to digress the last two Kielder Windward Leeward open meetings attended by top skiff sailors from all over the country have been won by a local Osprey....

[Rupert]

Thats coz for a windward - leeward course, the asymmetric is completely unsuited. The whole point is that it adds in all the tactical options you have going upwind - a point of sailing that all boats are unsuitable for, as none can go into the wind. They should really be thought of as a different branch of the sport, like windsurfing.

[Pat]

We always found the Lark and the RS200 fairly evenly matched when sailing at Frensham where the courses go star shaped and cover all directions of sailing. Wherever we went, they seemed to be getting to the next mark at the same time, whatever route they'd taken from the last mark.
Not very scientific and Frensham regulars would know more, but the RS were always getting in the way!.

[alan williams]

Hi I have always found that a proper spinnaker planning boat eg. Hornet, Fireball, 505, FD and Osprey on a normal olympic course or a round the bouys race will always beat an asymetrical boat. This used to cause lots of trouble at Mayflower, in the end we had to run two seperate courses as the flash harrys could not keep up or win. Fancy buying a boat and then having to have a special course to race it around as its not that great, Enough said.
Al

[ICLYM]

Hi Jim
yes my interest covers the Mirror 14/ Marauder as well.Both could be well suited to this form of construction. Looking at the latest P and B info posted to me the cost of new boats seems almost beyond reach of many who enjoy sailing without sponsorship etc.

A computer cut ply kit can be turned into a boat like form in a matter of hours. Yes there is filleting ,taping, coating etc to do. But the fact is many of these old ply dinghies have lasted 20+ years and the rest, without the materials we have available today. This might just be a way of getting more people on the water.

With specific regard to the 16 the thought that went into the boat was tremendous, flooding compartments to make it easier to reach the plate in case of capsize, something that I believe was fitted to the Stratos as an afterthought.
How many other day sailing dinghies had a roller reefing jib, that allowed you to reduce sail in a breeze like a yacht and sail on.
Another innovation was to use the plate case almost as a self bailer!

My feeling is this is a very interesting design. Further ply kits could help the export of sailing to developing countries.

Ivan

[davidh]

Ivan,

Hi, no t'was me that asked about your interest in the Marauder (which I guess was a tad cheeky as I'd heard in advance that you might well have thoughts on the boat - it's a small world remember).

I was about to put up a new thread using the recent building of a new Callaghan Merlin as an example but new that I'd cause AG another apoletic fit (not to mention him classing me as a mischief maker) but the case study works in some ways even better with a boat such as the M14. I say that as the M14/Marauder had a pretty good set of rules (sound of Dave C hitting the floor in a faint) so it is not a case of 'open house'.

So - we get some Cad work done and develop the panel shapes, which for a M14 (easier to write M14 than forever writing Marauder) is not that hard. The M14 used to use stitch and glue but nowadays you could probably do a lot better with Tabs then fillet. 4 sheets of ply for the hull, then 2 (maybe 3) more to do the side tanks and decks. There is little doubt that you could have a stiff, light and good hull for £500 - with the proviso that you're not charging an hourly rate for your work.

As this will be a 'new' boat there is no point in skimping on the finish - say another £400 (these figures are pretty good, as I've just done the repaint of Sherbert, a lilac coloured contender).

But then the problems start:

I've pulled these prices straight from the P&B website - there could well be cheaper options (but P&B do have a 15% sales on the sails so it's swings and roundabouts)

alloy mast and boom £800
spinni pole £100

full suit sails, (dacron) £1200

C'board (Milanes Value) £400
Rudder - ditto - £260
Stock £140

Then a quiet word with people who fit out dinghies - ropes and fittings can easily add another £1200.

The sum total of this is a tad shy of £5000, add in a cover, the hull cost and you're at £6000. Oh.... combi... £685.

This is by no means a case of going wildly OTT - this is pretty much using wherever possible 'stock' items. More importantly, there is nothing factored in for the 200 hours that the process would take.

What would you get for your money (by now you've added insurance and have little change from £7000... ouch). A brand new, rigged as per the latest thinking, top performance dinghy, capable of winning.....what? There is no Nationals, nor open circuit to promote the boat. You could call the boat 'Typhoon' as in the Eurofighter, that byword in expensive white elephants.

But for resale purposes...... you'd probably get more by selling the mast, sails and foils on fleabay!

If all this sounds rather depressing then it makes one consider that the new devoti D-One, at £10,000 (and that is a special offer) is a snip given the all carbon construction. £15,000 might get you a top of the range Finn or Merlin, you're still nowhere near a new 14 or 505 though.

I started this exercise thinking that I might do just the above as a linked series of articles for the magazine (BTW - watch out for BIG news on a brighter future for Dinghy Sailing Magazine - with Classics getting their own slot) and then 'hit' the Handicap circuit. But having done the sums......maybe not!

Dougal

[JimC]

a genuinely fast boat e.g. RS400 with a conventional kite

I'd have a lot of trouble calling an RS400 genuinely fast...
But the performance development classes, 12, 14, 16 and 18footers, Rs, Cherubs have gone universally over to the sprit kite. They are, however, all open water boats and all used to gybe downwind with pole kites.
Its also a difficult comparison: if you consider a Merlin alongside an RS400 then the RS400 has 40% more rag on the kite, over 50% more pole length, and a more aerodynamic cut...

[Rupert]

Maybe fast in the real world on confined waters would be a better description. Can't see an 18 footer doing well at Whitefriars...

[davidh]

I'd hate to call the RS 400 slow! As a non trapeze, 2 man, 'all round boat' I would have to say that the 400 fills the bill in more ways than one. In breeze they fly and in the lighter stuff they can wriggle along very well (though they can stick a bit in the real drifters).

I was covering the Wimbleball Beastie back in the spring and watched in pleasant surprise as one of the very first RS400s (albeit rigged with new sails) came very close to winning the event on boat speed alone. This was on wimbleball lake, which although a fair sized stretch of water is hardly the open sea (or even Grafham or Rutland). What's more, the RS400 carries weight well, in fact, if you've not got a fair few kilos on the gunwales you'll struggle in any breeze.

I have nothing but admiration for the way in which asymmetric spinnakers have totally revolutionised so much of sailing. But like so much of the so called 'progress' it has to be carefully qualified. Cherubs to 49ers, right up to the 18ft skiffs, the 'new thinking' has shown just how fast development can go - but surely this is only one facet of sailing. Along with foiling.....super light weight rigs..... it is a deveopment, nothing more,

D

[DavidC]

So that would be one of the early much lighter ones then???

[davidh]

Ha! Success! A positive comment on an *S 4*0 - always works.
Smokes the mystic man from the east out of his lair every time.

So Dave C, now you've proved you still exist and follow the website....

I'm sure that you've noted the lengthy conversations of Handicaps, Mirrors 14 and 16 and much more besides (not to mention the prospect of AG being flambe'd on the lawns of Cookham Reach).

Comments Dave?

D
Ps - time to tell all.

Will you be at Oulton broad (be a hard one to miss that - if you've got me camped up on your drive)

Which of the famous five will you be sailing?

How do we get from the bar at the sailing club back to your gaf?

After two weeks out east (if you include Pyefleet) - will the CVRDA ever be the same again?

[Ancient Geek]

Oulton Week and Broads Regattas in general can be a life changing experience, -for the better.
But then for a teenager and a precocious sailor it was a right of passage in every way, with tolerant elders.
I'll just sa this about lots of boats, they are ugly, do not sail well and there are plenty of pretty ones out there that do sail well, and Firefly and Lark excepted Manufacturers One Designs are not in the long term a good thing, any more than any single vendor is good in ant field of commerce.