Is there anyone else currently restoring one of these ?
Ivan
Mirror 16
Re: Mirror 16
Hi Ivan,
I've heard rumblings that there is a Mirror 16 being done up to do the handicap scene next year - banditry to the max!
I've got to pop down to Lymington shortly, fancy meeting up for a coffee at LTSC for a coffee and a chat about the Marauder/M14?
Dougal
I've heard rumblings that there is a Mirror 16 being done up to do the handicap scene next year - banditry to the max!
I've got to pop down to Lymington shortly, fancy meeting up for a coffee at LTSC for a coffee and a chat about the Marauder/M14?
Dougal
David H
-
ent228
- Posts: 228
- Joined: Thu Nov 27, 2008 11:32 pm
- Location: Stoke Gabriel, On the Dart, South Devon
Re: Mirror 16
Hi there,
I'm really interested in the Mirror 16 and came across this site in Aus with lots of info and pictures. There are people on it who are getting the boat out on autoCAD so we will be able to download offsets to produce panels. Looks good.
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/wooden ... 12064.html
I'm really interested in the Mirror 16 and came across this site in Aus with lots of info and pictures. There are people on it who are getting the boat out on autoCAD so we will be able to download offsets to produce panels. Looks good.
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/wooden ... 12064.html
Re: Mirror 16
I think the Mirror 16 lends itself exceptionally well to Cad/Cam techniques. Indeed I am sure one could produce a hull very quickly using the Prefix system, where panels are joined with jigsaw puzzle type pieces before being epoxy filleted.
Have just added some info and photos on Boat Design forum.
Ivan
PS I have a suspicion with a more modern rig this could be a real bandit!
Have just added some info and photos on Boat Design forum.
Ivan
PS I have a suspicion with a more modern rig this could be a real bandit!
Re: Mirror 16
Why should it be. Just depends on your club handicapper. The bandit thing is pretty much a myth anyway.ICLYM wrote:PS I have a suspicion with a more modern rig this could be a real bandit!
Re: Mirror 16
Jim,
Disagree totally.
As one who (in the past - am now a reformed character) made something of a specialist subject out of handicap banditry there are any number of loopholes to be exploited. With the exception of those rather sad places where buggins turn is the answer, driven through by personal handicapping (why do that when you have people sailing the same class of boat - where is the reward for practice and effort there?) there are boats that work well under the PY scheme and those that don't.
Amongst other boats, this year I've been sailing Phantoms and Contenders. Now the Phantom is a great example; rig one with a carbon stick, good gear and you've a magic boat for h'cap sailing, all the more so when the course takes you 'around the cans'. The simplicity of the boat results in a good helm being set up for the next leg within a boat length of the previous mark, where it accelarated quickly away from most other boats.
Now at the same time the Contender is another kettle of fish. The helm is hunched up on the sidedeck like quasimodo, wishing he'd stayed ashore to offer his body for root canal experiments!. Then something magic happens: The wind comes! Even with a raking carbon rig the Phantom sailor starts slogging upwind - whilst the contender sailor has thrashed around and is back in the bar. Handicapping is just not good enough to reflect changing wind strengths so if you had a Phantom AND a Contender then you have the bases covered.
Other well know 'sailing above their Handicap' whizzers.........
420 in Breeze
Enterprise in a drifter
470 - breeze
505 - in just about anything.
Of course, those classes with asymmetrics that sail boring windward-leeward courses will always do well under these circumstances but for club racing, around the cans where a leg can be anything from a close reach to a dead run, boats with a wider performance envelope will always prosper. (I did a season of club racing in a 14 and can confirm that is was frustrating - sailing so fast, yet such poor results).
So, a well kitted out Mirror 16 could well be a winner on Handicap, in very much the same way that a Mirror14/Marauder is an excellant club performer. Are they better than a Merlin or Kestrel for club sailing - maybe, maybe not..... in the end it comes down to the skill of the sailor too!
D
Disagree totally.
As one who (in the past - am now a reformed character) made something of a specialist subject out of handicap banditry there are any number of loopholes to be exploited. With the exception of those rather sad places where buggins turn is the answer, driven through by personal handicapping (why do that when you have people sailing the same class of boat - where is the reward for practice and effort there?) there are boats that work well under the PY scheme and those that don't.
Amongst other boats, this year I've been sailing Phantoms and Contenders. Now the Phantom is a great example; rig one with a carbon stick, good gear and you've a magic boat for h'cap sailing, all the more so when the course takes you 'around the cans'. The simplicity of the boat results in a good helm being set up for the next leg within a boat length of the previous mark, where it accelarated quickly away from most other boats.
Now at the same time the Contender is another kettle of fish. The helm is hunched up on the sidedeck like quasimodo, wishing he'd stayed ashore to offer his body for root canal experiments!. Then something magic happens: The wind comes! Even with a raking carbon rig the Phantom sailor starts slogging upwind - whilst the contender sailor has thrashed around and is back in the bar. Handicapping is just not good enough to reflect changing wind strengths so if you had a Phantom AND a Contender then you have the bases covered.
Other well know 'sailing above their Handicap' whizzers.........
420 in Breeze
Enterprise in a drifter
470 - breeze
505 - in just about anything.
Of course, those classes with asymmetrics that sail boring windward-leeward courses will always do well under these circumstances but for club racing, around the cans where a leg can be anything from a close reach to a dead run, boats with a wider performance envelope will always prosper. (I did a season of club racing in a 14 and can confirm that is was frustrating - sailing so fast, yet such poor results).
So, a well kitted out Mirror 16 could well be a winner on Handicap, in very much the same way that a Mirror14/Marauder is an excellant club performer. Are they better than a Merlin or Kestrel for club sailing - maybe, maybe not..... in the end it comes down to the skill of the sailor too!
D
David H
Re: Mirror 16
David, on a small lake such as Hunts the contender is useless, breeze or no breeze, just because it takes longet to tack than the phantom or laser or any other hiking single hander. That's why I keep the phantom menace at Hunts and the c boat at Grafham where it has the space it needs to stretch its legs.
Horses for courses, as always.
I've also been looking at the Mirror 16 site, because my Marauder searches always take me there
It looks like it would have been a decent boat in tis time.
Horses for courses, as always.
I've also been looking at the Mirror 16 site, because my Marauder searches always take me there
It looks like it would have been a decent boat in tis time.The Peril
Agamemnon
Lovely little Cadet
OK 1954
Xena Warrior Princess
Finn 469
Laser 2
Wayfarer World
Agamemnon
Lovely little Cadet
OK 1954
Xena Warrior Princess
Finn 469
Laser 2
Wayfarer World
Re: Mirror 16
David, what you are describing isn't banditry - it is choosing a boat which suits the water you sail on. The Firefly on asmall lake is great, and sails well up to handicap. The 505 we have, which I crewed the other day, doesn't have room between the marks to get away enough and make up for the fact that the smaller boats are quicker at that sort of thing, so it is always counting positions from the back, even when streets ahead on the water. The owner sails it because he would rather have the fun of the boat than win things, which is far enough, but the bottom line is that it isn't a small lake boat.
Swap the boats to the sea, and the positions would usually be reversed, but the 505 wouldn't be a bandit, just suited to the conditions. Same goes for all the boats you described, bar the carbon rigged Phantom, which is taking advantage of years of tin rigged Phantoms keeping the handicap above what the carbon one is capable of. It isn't the only boat where improvements are still filtering through, though. All the foam sandwich one designs are in a similar position. The Firefly could have been, but deliberately wasn't.
Swap the boats to the sea, and the positions would usually be reversed, but the 505 wouldn't be a bandit, just suited to the conditions. Same goes for all the boats you described, bar the carbon rigged Phantom, which is taking advantage of years of tin rigged Phantoms keeping the handicap above what the carbon one is capable of. It isn't the only boat where improvements are still filtering through, though. All the foam sandwich one designs are in a similar position. The Firefly could have been, but deliberately wasn't.
Rupert
Re: Mirror 16
Rupert,
sorry to be pedantic but..."oh yes it is".
If you choose what you are going to sail purely on the basis of the success factor of that boat under the PY system then that is handicap banditry.
And yes, for a number of years (make that many years) I did just that. I choose the boats that I raced with considerable care, taking into account the club I was sailing at and the 'sort' of racing they offered. I have a strong belief that there are 'tricks of the trade' that apply to racing in a handicap fleet that have a subtle yet clear difference to fleet sailing. I do not think that I have knowingly cheated, but in the search for Handicap success I left few avenues unexplored.
The proof of the pudding is that I have ditched the Phantom in favour of the Contender. As a handicap boat, even at an open water club like Netley, the Contender is almost a non starter, as by the time there is enough breeze to make the boat fly, then the RS500s are into their element. But you know what? I've had more FUN sailing the contender and coming mid fleet than I had in a successful season, winning races in the Phantom!
If adding to the 'glory store' was what I wanted then without a doubt I'd be back in the Phantom...or a Blaze..... a Scorpion, Kestrel maybe ( a great handicap boat for the 'bigger' sailor), Merlin Rocket or 505 (or best of all, if you could get it - a really smart Marauder). Notice there is nothing in the way of an asymmetric there? Why?
Sailing on tidal waters gives you a 50-50 chance of running into the tide. Now a boat that you can run dead downwind (abeit into the tide) under spinnaker is more successful on handicap than tacking downwind into the tide.
If you use this and this alone as your criteria, then you too are a Bandit..... and welcome to the club!
D
sorry to be pedantic but..."oh yes it is".
If you choose what you are going to sail purely on the basis of the success factor of that boat under the PY system then that is handicap banditry.
And yes, for a number of years (make that many years) I did just that. I choose the boats that I raced with considerable care, taking into account the club I was sailing at and the 'sort' of racing they offered. I have a strong belief that there are 'tricks of the trade' that apply to racing in a handicap fleet that have a subtle yet clear difference to fleet sailing. I do not think that I have knowingly cheated, but in the search for Handicap success I left few avenues unexplored.
The proof of the pudding is that I have ditched the Phantom in favour of the Contender. As a handicap boat, even at an open water club like Netley, the Contender is almost a non starter, as by the time there is enough breeze to make the boat fly, then the RS500s are into their element. But you know what? I've had more FUN sailing the contender and coming mid fleet than I had in a successful season, winning races in the Phantom!
If adding to the 'glory store' was what I wanted then without a doubt I'd be back in the Phantom...or a Blaze..... a Scorpion, Kestrel maybe ( a great handicap boat for the 'bigger' sailor), Merlin Rocket or 505 (or best of all, if you could get it - a really smart Marauder). Notice there is nothing in the way of an asymmetric there? Why?
Sailing on tidal waters gives you a 50-50 chance of running into the tide. Now a boat that you can run dead downwind (abeit into the tide) under spinnaker is more successful on handicap than tacking downwind into the tide.
If you use this and this alone as your criteria, then you too are a Bandit..... and welcome to the club!
D
David H
-
alan williams
- Posts: 1650
- Joined: Thu Sep 16, 2004 10:44 pm
- Location: Devon
Re: Mirror 16
Hi Dave
I would agree there is a certain amount of banditry . For example take a certain CVRDA class with a huge spinnaker and trapeze which is rated slower than a Scorpian and a Finn. Reason being that it was never sailed in the sixties by any really good sailors so the handicap is very favourable. Want to win find a boat that only average or bellow average sailors sailed and sail it well. Result instant win.
Cheers Al
I would agree there is a certain amount of banditry . For example take a certain CVRDA class with a huge spinnaker and trapeze which is rated slower than a Scorpian and a Finn. Reason being that it was never sailed in the sixties by any really good sailors so the handicap is very favourable. Want to win find a boat that only average or bellow average sailors sailed and sail it well. Result instant win.
Cheers Al
Last edited by alan williams on Mon Nov 23, 2009 9:14 pm, edited 2 times in total.
-
Ancient Geek
- Posts: 1133
- Joined: Wed Sep 10, 2008 9:50 am
- Location: Sletten,3250, Denmark and Hampshire GU33 7LR UK
Re: Mirror 16
Have you seen the article in the current Y&Y on the Blosdy Mary and Portsmouth numbers.
Simples.
Re: Mirror 16
Al,
a good point well made.
Been there and done that- yet equally, have been on the back end of the same thing (out bandited you might say)
In the 505 with Pitman, we had a year that saw us close to unbeatable at home and on the international circuit. Over the winter months, in three weekends we won the Hayling Cracker, Tilly's Tiller and the Burnham Icicle. However, come the Pompey Perisher, only 2nd...beaten by a team from a certain south coast club that had taken a National 18, rigged it like an FD and to all intents were just about impossible to better on h'cap. Within a year, clubs had gotten wise to the team (not that there was not a lot of help in getting the word about the pot hunters out to club sailing secs) and they moved on.
An extreme case maybe but all the same it is just what I was talking about.
Jack Knights knew this too - he and I had quite a long conversation with Mike Holmes (of Grimbsy & Cleethorpes.... Further north by still home to some east coast brigands) as at the time there was a company up there with the moulds for the Pegasus. Had Jack not has his heart attack, it is quite possible that he'd have done a season of handicap pot hunting, just to prove the point that he liked to make about the inequality of the PY system. Jack had a hull, rig, sails and fittings (he wanted it to be pretty much as per the 505 set up) all lined up. What I can tell you is that he had discounted the Peggie as not being 'bandit enough'.
Now I make no claim to be another Jack Knights, either as journalist or as sailor, for he was very much in a class way above most of us. What I can tell you though is that the trick that he intended working is there for all to follow, you just need the will and the wherewithall to make it happen.
As Big Al rightly points out, we already know of a boat that sports an ample sail area, spinny, trapeze, yet rates lower than a Finn. To think that there is something even more generous than that.....well....if that ain't banditry, then I don't know what is!
Dougal aka Chief Mischief Maker
a good point well made.
Been there and done that- yet equally, have been on the back end of the same thing (out bandited you might say)
In the 505 with Pitman, we had a year that saw us close to unbeatable at home and on the international circuit. Over the winter months, in three weekends we won the Hayling Cracker, Tilly's Tiller and the Burnham Icicle. However, come the Pompey Perisher, only 2nd...beaten by a team from a certain south coast club that had taken a National 18, rigged it like an FD and to all intents were just about impossible to better on h'cap. Within a year, clubs had gotten wise to the team (not that there was not a lot of help in getting the word about the pot hunters out to club sailing secs) and they moved on.
An extreme case maybe but all the same it is just what I was talking about.
Jack Knights knew this too - he and I had quite a long conversation with Mike Holmes (of Grimbsy & Cleethorpes.... Further north by still home to some east coast brigands) as at the time there was a company up there with the moulds for the Pegasus. Had Jack not has his heart attack, it is quite possible that he'd have done a season of handicap pot hunting, just to prove the point that he liked to make about the inequality of the PY system. Jack had a hull, rig, sails and fittings (he wanted it to be pretty much as per the 505 set up) all lined up. What I can tell you is that he had discounted the Peggie as not being 'bandit enough'.
Now I make no claim to be another Jack Knights, either as journalist or as sailor, for he was very much in a class way above most of us. What I can tell you though is that the trick that he intended working is there for all to follow, you just need the will and the wherewithall to make it happen.
As Big Al rightly points out, we already know of a boat that sports an ample sail area, spinny, trapeze, yet rates lower than a Finn. To think that there is something even more generous than that.....well....if that ain't banditry, then I don't know what is!
Dougal aka Chief Mischief Maker
David H
-
Ancient Geek
- Posts: 1133
- Joined: Wed Sep 10, 2008 9:50 am
- Location: Sletten,3250, Denmark and Hampshire GU33 7LR UK
Re: Mirror 16
Come on people lets grow up and race level. I think that the point that Jack as an Oxbridge Graduate was making was to reducteo ad absurdum (Sorry - but "O" level Latin is a long time ago - if my legendary bad spelling has gone latin!
Handicap racing is all very well as a bit of occasional fun, in the olden days The Burnham Icicle (these days The Bloody Mary) an excuse for a party and a swim the next day! But as a way of life I think not. Of course in the smaller clubs with disperate fleets it may be the only way to get a race and b******r cruising! But once again in former days when sailing was growing very fast, not shrinking the established clubs restricted racing to their chosen classes, the new clubs adopted the newer classes, then post glaciation as it were no club could be as choosy and all sorts of oddball classes proliferated.
I do occasional race in a handicap class, but in that each individual boat is rated by performance rather on the Golf or National Hunt Basis, I have suggested this before but the bandits do not seem to favour this! I wonder why?
So good luck sorting handicaps, if you can crack it you will have squared the circle!
Handicap racing is all very well as a bit of occasional fun, in the olden days The Burnham Icicle (these days The Bloody Mary) an excuse for a party and a swim the next day! But as a way of life I think not. Of course in the smaller clubs with disperate fleets it may be the only way to get a race and b******r cruising! But once again in former days when sailing was growing very fast, not shrinking the established clubs restricted racing to their chosen classes, the new clubs adopted the newer classes, then post glaciation as it were no club could be as choosy and all sorts of oddball classes proliferated.
I do occasional race in a handicap class, but in that each individual boat is rated by performance rather on the Golf or National Hunt Basis, I have suggested this before but the bandits do not seem to favour this! I wonder why?
So good luck sorting handicaps, if you can crack it you will have squared the circle!
Simples.
Re: Mirror 16
AG,
In an ideal world, I'd be with you the whole of the way. But since the generation of which we just happen to be a part made such a balls of the UK dinghy scene, with boats cropping up willy nilly and all getting their own little following, life in the dinghy racing universe is far from ideal.
In fact, the situation gets worser not betterer - as those who now carry the baton of dinghy development would have us sailing plastic fantastics where one size really does fit all (and if you don't fit then tough). This means that like it or not, if you sail in about 2/3rds of the UK dinghy clubs, then you'll be in a handicap fleet.
But hold on, all is not lost. There are some great prizes to be won, some of the big handicap events have pretty good sponsorship (you should see the prize list at the Glynn Charles at HiSC) and increasingly, a star does not have to be the winner of a Nationals but could equally be the winner of the Bloody Mary, Tigger Trophy or GGP.
Like foiling, twin wiring and off the boom sheeting, handicap sailing is all part and parcel of what is there. Doesn't make it right - I think we all agree on that, but it is what it is.
So why not go 100% 'all out' with a boat optimised for winning handicap events. There may no longer be a Championships for the XYZ class but as you pointed out in another string, big Championship style events may not be all that much cop anyway.
Would you rather.....
Do a Week long Championships in a naff boat at Hayling, paying through the nose for the experience of sailing in some 'questionalble waters'
or
Sail (for example) Camel week at Rock, Pyfleet Week, Fed Week at Chichester or bestest of all, Abersoch week. Have a great time, some good sailing and still have time to enjoy oneself inbetween times.
Answers on a postcard please......
D
In an ideal world, I'd be with you the whole of the way. But since the generation of which we just happen to be a part made such a balls of the UK dinghy scene, with boats cropping up willy nilly and all getting their own little following, life in the dinghy racing universe is far from ideal.
In fact, the situation gets worser not betterer - as those who now carry the baton of dinghy development would have us sailing plastic fantastics where one size really does fit all (and if you don't fit then tough). This means that like it or not, if you sail in about 2/3rds of the UK dinghy clubs, then you'll be in a handicap fleet.
But hold on, all is not lost. There are some great prizes to be won, some of the big handicap events have pretty good sponsorship (you should see the prize list at the Glynn Charles at HiSC) and increasingly, a star does not have to be the winner of a Nationals but could equally be the winner of the Bloody Mary, Tigger Trophy or GGP.
Like foiling, twin wiring and off the boom sheeting, handicap sailing is all part and parcel of what is there. Doesn't make it right - I think we all agree on that, but it is what it is.
So why not go 100% 'all out' with a boat optimised for winning handicap events. There may no longer be a Championships for the XYZ class but as you pointed out in another string, big Championship style events may not be all that much cop anyway.
Would you rather.....
Do a Week long Championships in a naff boat at Hayling, paying through the nose for the experience of sailing in some 'questionalble waters'
or
Sail (for example) Camel week at Rock, Pyfleet Week, Fed Week at Chichester or bestest of all, Abersoch week. Have a great time, some good sailing and still have time to enjoy oneself inbetween times.
Answers on a postcard please......
D
David H
Re: Mirror 16
But probably only one win unles you have a very naive club handicapper.alan williams wrote:Want to win find a boat that only average or bellow average sailors sailed and sail it well. Result instant win.
A far more effective way of doing well at major events is to own about half a dozen boats, and sail the one best suited to the water and weather on the day. But even then you are most likely to be beaten by the folk who sail that boat more regularly than you and know how to get the best out if it.
I've done a good bit of data gathering on handicap racing, that's why I am confident the bandit thing is basically a myth. For instance when I did some sums on Bloody Mary results a few years ago the legendary bandit Phantom averaged a finishing place of 44% of number of starters...