Sixty years after the first boat went afloat the Mirror remains a hotly contested class but with a rare spirit of friendship across all ages and sailing backgrounds. It is also a proper little three-sail design, so if you move on to a spinnaker class then the basics have already been learnt. As well as being a great starter dinghy with a strong class association to help you along (and run first-class regattas) the sea-keeping abilities of the original Bucknell/Holt design are truly exceptional, and have kept many an inexperienced newcomer safe when things do not quite go to plan


to sea south of the Newhaven harbour arm. It was early summer and the sea was blue and calm. Even at this distance I could see the huge buoy being lifted over the side from its deck. The ship was there a few days and so on the Saturday morning I indulged my mild curiosity and went for a look-see. It was a beautiful Sussex morning, with


1956 13ft 3in Enterprise which itself had been promoted by the News Chronicle. The new dinghy was to be launched at


the London Boat Show in January 1963. Ironically it was a Daily Express show, and they objected to the Daily Mirror name and so it just became the Mirror. 250 kits had been pre-ordered from Bell Woodworking in Leicester and within a few weeks all had been sold. But a lot of the genius of the Mirror was


in that basic Bucknell design. The enclosed buoyancy tanks, creating the fore, side and aft decks made it unsinkable, while at the same time little lockers forward had enough space for tools, shoes and lunch. The simple daggerboard was easy to use and could be held down with an easy elastic tie. It was a boat you sat inside with proper gunwales, so children felt instantly safe. The gunter rig was also easy to put up,


with two shackles for the shrouds and a rope to tension the forestay. When you took it down the spars all fitted inside the boat making it easy to tow – or you could put it on top of a car and not be restricted to the 50mph speed limit of a trailer. Another clever inclusion was a second tabernacle set a few inches forward on the foredeck which made for a well-balanced boat sailing under cat rig without the jib. I loved using this simple set-up when I


was 10, endlessly sailing on my own around the lake we visited on family holidays. You could row the Mirror and all the


kits came with a set of oars. The design of the transom also allowed an outboard to be fitted – all making it into the most versatile dinghy on the planet. We once squeezed 12 friends onto Golly Gosh and were still happily rowing her around. It was a boat you could keep at home; we hoisted ours against the ceiling in the


garage for the winter and sometimes at the local sailing club the rest of the time. The boat did require upkeep, which was


something we were encouraged to do our- selves. Typically boats were painted on the outside and varnished on the inside. This was a necessary yearly ritual and by the early 1970s some canny owners were working out that Woolworth’s outdoor paint was as good as the chandlers’ offer- ings – at a fraction of the price. The Mirror went on to become the most


popular dinghy in the world – with sales at the all-time high point of 116 boats per week in 1972. Just over 71,000 have been sold and the secondhand market ensures that buying one is virtually a pocket money decision; you can often find a good Mirror that is free to a good home. Perhaps the most important aspect of


the Mirror was that it was a proper sailing boat which gave you skills that you could take on to larger and more complex craft. You watched your luff, you backed your jib, you learned your tell tales. And sailing by the lee down the length of a Cumbrian lake was just as good for instilling helming skills you could use on a Tall Ship. Racing one taught you even more; for


instance, making a normal spinnaker reach- to-reach gybe gave you more skill than you could get using an asymmetric today. I learned to love the independence the


Mirror gave me. And when my brother moved away to university I could still sail our newer Mirror on my own. I’d get her out of the garage and carry her like a coracle up the steps behind our house and across the Esplanade onto the beach. A quick trot back and I could get all her gear into my arms and have her rigged in a few minutes. One morning I looked up from my corn- flakes and saw a ship sitting stationary out


the sun warm through a sea haze, and quiet but for the low swell sawing against the shingle and a fishing boat puttering along, half a mile out. The smell of the boat’s fresh varnish and the sea’s ozone was a heady little cocktail. I always liked the way things clunk when they are put in a wooden boat, it has an almost musical harmonic to it. I can’t remember how long I was sailing


out but when I got to the buoy it was the size of a small house! I circled it warily, aware of the turbulent tide tilting it so that it swayed over me with a kind of animal menace. I hauled my sheets and set off home; the land was not much more than a pencil line on the horizon. I guess once you have a boat you have a


method of travel that, in northern climes, pre-dates the road in winter; it pre-dates bridges. You can cross a river into the hitherto prohibited land on the other side. If you’re on a lake you can go to any point of the compass. Then you can go down a river visiting countless other places and maybe get to the sea. Suddenly the world is your oyster, you


are connected by water to places all over the globe. You start small – if you’ve gone down one river you go along the coast until you find the next river. You observe the tides and use the incoming tide to take you miles up that river to your next port of call. You can carry things with you; go with a friend or carry a stranger. Quite importantly, you can do a lot of


this while you are sitting down; it’s more fit-making than back-breaking. And once at sea the salt air scrapes all the dust out of your lungs, so they feel like hidden balloons of power in your chest giving you a strength you didn’t realise you had. You learn about all the living things in


the water and next to it. You start to feel that the water itself is a living thing. It’s the life-bringer, the connector that ebbs and floods into the land like a breathing thing – rhythmic as a clock on the tides and sea- sonal in the rivers and lakes deep inland. And the wonderful little Mirror reflects q


all of that. SEAHORSE 45


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