Mirror 16 foot Sailing Dinghy

Discussion in 'Wooden Boat Building and Restoration' started by goolawah, Jun 6, 2006.

  1. Ozducati
    Joined: May 2008
    Posts: 57
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    Location: Brisbane

    Ozducati Mirror 16 #189

    Danp,
    Im local to you (Wellington Point). I would like to have a look at your boat, if possible. You probably have the "private messaging" option deselected on the options page of your profile, as I cannot send you a PM. Can you enable the option and contact me via private message.
     
  2. danp
    Joined: Oct 2008
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    Location: Brisbane

    danp New Member

    Hi Rod. I'd be happy to show you the boat. I couldn't figure out how to send you a PM. Give me a call on 0402628718 when you want to have a look. The weekend would be good. If you need any help with the plans I'd be glad to help as well.

    BTW I unrolled the sail and the sail number is 189.
    I put a camera inside and it looks like all the ribs are broken. I guess thats where I should start?

    My boat came without a trailer so if anyone here has a trailer they'd like to sell I'd be interested.

    Dan
     

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  3. Ozducati
    Joined: May 2008
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    Location: Brisbane

    Ozducati Mirror 16 #189

    G'day Dan,
    I've got my sister & her husband turning up here from NSW on Thursday. They are only here for four days, so the weekend after this one would be earliest opportunity for me. I have a copy of the "Mirror 16 Building Instructions" and some other paperwork, so it'll give me a chance to get a set of copies run off for you.
    I have attached a pic of the original Mirror 16 trailer.... I don't know if they would still be road legal.
    I'll call you next week.
     

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  4. goolawah
    Joined: Oct 2005
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    Location: Brisbane, Australia

    goolawah Junior Member

    Hi Dan,

    Welcome aboard! In principle we should be on a 'messabout' today, with other members of the Wooden Boat Association of Queensland, cruising from Manly to Green island, St Helena etc. Including other Mirror 16s as shown in Rod's very nice photo (thanks Rod).

    Given that the weather looks less than brilliant, we have opted to stay home instead and do some cleaning up and minor repairs on Lulubelle after that storm. I hope the other guys make it.

    If you want to have a chat to other Mirror 16 owners in Brisbane, you might like to come along to a meeting of the Wooden Boat Association. Our next meeting is an informal Christmas break-up for the year and we resume activities again in February.

    Great to see that another Mirror 16 has come to light.
     
  5. Sweet16
    Joined: Nov 2008
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    Location: Yoxford Suffolk UK

    Sweet16 Junior Member

    Hi, Sweet16 is name of my M16 I bought from Barrie and sail at Slaughden Sailing Club - Suffolk. We now have three M16s at this club - including Barrie's. Sail number 494 - dark blue (Oxford?) hull with varnish deck an interior.

    Rupert Hannen
    Yoxford, Suffolk
     
  6. goolawah
    Joined: Oct 2005
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    Location: Brisbane, Australia

    goolawah Junior Member

    Hi Rupert, good to hear from you. I guess you have finished sailing for the winter. When you get back to it, how about some pictures sometimes. Where do you normally sail around there? Last night we were watching a TV program on the Lake District by Griff Rhys Jones. Stunning scenery!

    Here' some more about Lulubelle's misadventure.

    Lulubelle had a close shave, and she wasn't even on the water. On 16 November Brisbane was hit by a violent thunderstorm. Just google it and you'll find lots of u-tube videos of the event. We were out at the time and were delayed by about 2 hours in getting home due to fallen trees across roads. When we finally got home it was chaos. Several big trees had dropped branches and some had snapped right off. The first sight that greeted us was that our loquat tree had fallen on Lulubelle.

    The tree was heavy with dense new spring foliage, the ground was softened by heavy rain, and the wind had been extremely strong. It just toppled over, crushing the 'temporary' carport shelter down on our poor fragile plywood boat. The tarpaulin over the cockpit was destroyed so, in the heavy rain, she had half filled with water. Some of this had drained out through the centre-case (as it is designed to do in the event of a capsize) but the deposit of shredded leaves had pretty much clogged all exits.

    The first thing was to set up a siphon to drain the water out and relieve her of that great weight. The next step was to start at the accessible 'top' of the tree, now resting across her bow, and lop off the thinner branches with their heavy load of wet leaves. Once the leafy branches were removed it was out with the saw and cutting the heavier branches eventually getting down to the trunk. Before long enough weigh had been removed from the top ot the tree that the weight of the root bole was enough for remaining stump to pull itself off the boat and back to a vertical position. All by itself! It just remained to remove the mangled carport and fit a new tarpaulin to prevent the next thunderstorm filling her up again.

    The original plan for this weekend was a messabout with other Wooden Boat Association members, including a couple of other Mirror 16s, from Manly Boat Harbour to St Helena Island (see here), Instead we stayed home so that Lulubelle could have a clean up and a closer inspection. Apart from a good deal of residual dampness and dirt, the only damage was to the yoke I use to hold the dropped mast when she's on the trailer.

    Of course, the worry is that she has been thoroughly soaked in fresh water and that space under the floor needs to be dried out thoroughly to prevent rot. When we did the original rebuild we included 16 plastic ports in the floor to make it easier to mop out any water and to aid ventilation when she's not in use. Naturally they are all removed to let the breeze through. There have been several heavy storms since the big one and the weather is very humid. Hopefully a few sunny days will dry her out thoroughly.

    Next job is to erect a new temporary car-port. It looks like being a wet summer.


    http://maps.google.com.au/maps/ms?h...562031474563488826.00045ccc26163c803c814&z=14
     

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  7. Sweet16
    Joined: Nov 2008
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    Location: Yoxford Suffolk UK

    Sweet16 Junior Member

    What a storm! Good fortune that Lulubelle survived from such devastation. Do you have large circular drain ports on Lulubelles transom - same as the plastic ports you have in your floor? Sweet16 has one either side of the centreline and these are permanently open (removed) to allow water to flow out after capsize etc. Such would have allowed the flow out of Lulubelle following the tarpaulin shredding. I have picked up some superb pics from this site for my understanding of this super class. This year (2008) has seen less sailing than last - when I bought Sweet16 from Barrie. Weather in UK has been grim for sailing this year and other commitments have impacted on this activity. Have only sailed along the river Alde and Ore - which join together and flow from Snape via Aldeburgh/Slaughden past Orford to Shingle Street where it joins the North Sea in a somewhat treacherous exit. We do have a haven for dinghy sailing on these two joined rivers. Hope your wet summer is what is wanted by the farmers - but is easy on the sailors! Good luck in your car port rebuild. Best wishes & Happy Christmas
    Rupert
     
  8. Ozducati
    Joined: May 2008
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    Location: Brisbane

    Ozducati Mirror 16 #189

    G'day John,
    Glad to hear that the damage to Lulubelle isn't too substantial. We got a bit of a breeze and 4" of rain, but nothing nearly as bad as in your area. I tried to send you an e-mail but the address was rejected. Have you changed it?
    If you need a hand with anything don't hesitate to call me.

    Some good news: I have finished drawing up the factory layouts for our new plant in Thailand which means I can spend more time on the Mirror drawing. I have re-started the model from scratch using a combination of the Mirror 16 Class Measurement Rules and photos and measurements of your Mirror.
    Pic attached.

    At the moment I need two dimensions: The thickness of the centreboard, and the width of the centreboard slot. Can anyone help me out here?
     

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  9. thudpucker
    Joined: Jul 2007
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    Location: Al.

    thudpucker Senior Member

    I would very much like to see some more on the Oars shown in the pictures on the first page (Nemesis)
    I intend to build some oars sometime soon and those look interesting.
    Anybody have any leads for me?:)
     
  10. goolawah
    Joined: Oct 2005
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    Location: Brisbane, Australia

    goolawah Junior Member

    There are quite a vew magazine articles, and books, on making oars. Probably plenty of info on this forum also. Was it th e 'break apart' aspect of the oars pictured that interested you?

    What sort of oars are you planning on (how long, what for, etc)?
     
  11. thudpucker
    Joined: Jul 2007
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    Location: Al.

    thudpucker Senior Member

    Yes, goolawah, its the break apart that interested me.
    I have not found that on the internet so far. I have saved a few articles on making oars, and some on a 12' to 15' Jon Boat.
    Eventually I'll have oars for a Jon boat, so right now I dont know how long exactly but probably Seven or Eight foot long.

    The oars I'm going to make shortly are for my 12' Aluminum Rowing skiff. I have Six' oars now and want Seven or even Eight foot oars. I'm old and take easy short strokes normally.

    I'm at the age where fishing out of a stable comfortable boat with all my stuff right at hand, and oars for propulsion is my goal. If I stand up, I dont want the boat tipping or sliding out from underneat me.

    The Fold up oars in that photo look like the piece in the middle would come off the upper or lower end of the oar. It looks strong but also heavy. Like bronze or steel.
    I believe 1/4" thick aluminum would work though. I'd sure like to see it close up.
    Have we thoroughly hijaced this thread?
     
  12. goolawah
    Joined: Oct 2005
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    Location: Brisbane, Australia

    goolawah Junior Member

    Hi Dan,

    I have closed down the web-site where I had posted some of the words and pictures from our Mirror 16 restoration project. I have copied them here in case they might be helpfulto you...

    The obvious repairs needed appeared only slightly more than with Snow White (our previous Mirror 10 project). A few sections of the gunwale, some rusty steel screws to replace, a repaint and possibly new ply on the foredeck. Being only 4mm ply, the floor felt a bit flimsy and it was a big decision whether or not to delve into the bilges. Peering through one of the ports suggested that it might be wise to inspect a bit closer. At first look the starboard side looked the most likely to need work so I cut a larger inspection port under the optimistic assumption that, once our confidence was restored it would be easy to patch.

    No prizes for guessing, the more we inspected, worse it looked! Clearly some of the floor webs needed to be replaced. The cockpit seat buoyancy tanks all looked OK. We did a lot of pondering about how to remove (and replace) the floor without starting the major rebuild that would be required if we removed the seats as well. Taking one small step at a time we removed the floor, back to the edge of the seats.

    Only then did we discover that the port side was in far worse shape than the starboard, and the centre case was pretty dodgy too. It looked as though the centre board had been wrenched sideways so hard that the floor webs on the port side of it had been smashed – so we took them out too. Somebody had tried to fix the resulting leaks by pouring in, and sloshing around, some “gunk” that looked like thick paint. This took quite a bit of removing but we wanted to make sure we were getting back to the bare wood as much as possible.

    There had been a few other 'bodgie' repairs where someone had tried to repair the floor webs without removing the floor. I'm really glad I opened her right up so I could inspect properly, repair with confidence and add suitable reinforcements where needed.

    Some of the aft floor webs had also been damaged and separated from the bottom ply. We started by cutting some 19mm timber to match the curve of the bottom and patched up the less damaged webs as you can see in the picture.

    The patches on the bottom were a bit rough, but appeared sound so we left them undisturbed.

    The next critical task was to replace the centre-case and this was quite tricky, as we had to make sure of a good fit with the bottom, the for-and-aft spine, and the webs retained on the starboard side.

    Not surprisingly there was a lot of fiddling about building up the centre case and fitting it to the centreboard with the novel hinge arrangement used in the mirror. We had to mock it up several times before re-fitting it in the boat. In the process we discovered that it was very easy to get painted (or should I say epoxied?) into a corner if everything wasn’t assembled in precisely the correct order. I had a few practice runs before mixing the epoxy and going for it. Preparation paid off and it all fitted together really well. And didn’t leak afterwards.

    Before fitting the centre case I had cut new floor webs and included these in my practice assembly runs. At the suggestion of an other, more experienced Mirror 16 owner, I left more ply and simply cut round holes for ventilation and a little weight reduction. I also used 6mm in place of 4mm ply.

    Next question. How to re-fit the floor securely given that it can only butt against the bottom edge of the existing buoyancy tanks?

    Not shown in the sketch above was a 19x19mm batten along the inside bottom of the buoyancy tank and a 12mm batten along the top edge of each web. Firstly I fitted a new 19x19mm batten on the outside of the tank along the full length of the cockpit. This was screwed through the ply into the batten inside the compartment. It was also screwed down into the batten on the top edge of the web. The webs are 300mm apart so I then cut about 25, 300mm lengths of 38x12mm, with ends cut to mach the angle between the side and each web. I then screwed down through the new 19x19mm batten into the new 38x12 clamp. When this was all glued and screwed in place it formed a strong “girder” that bound together the rather doubtful remaining edges of the existing floor and provided a solid base to which the new floor could be attached. Again, I had a few practice runs screwing it together dry to make sure it all worked.

    At this stage we (the missus actually) primed the inside and we did a secret trial launch to check for any leaks before re-fitting the floor. No leaks around the centre-case but a bit more work had to be done on the transom.

    It seemed sensible to make the new floor out of 9mm ply. It was a bit tricky cutting this to a precise fit but at least we now had a sound foundation to work to.

    After doing all this, it was relatively easy to repair he transom, replace the foredeck and fix parts of the gunwale.

    All this work was done with her on the trailer, which made it easy. However, painting required that she be turned over. Help from a few friends made light work of this and freed up the trailer for some much needed repairs.
     

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  13. goolawah
    Joined: Oct 2005
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    Location: Brisbane, Australia

    goolawah Junior Member

    The owner of that boat is in the UK. I haven't heard from him for some time but have now emailed him to let him know of your inquiry.

    Let's see if he can give you some more info...
     
  14. danp
    Joined: Oct 2008
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    Location: Brisbane

    danp New Member

    Thanks for posting that John. I think I will take a similar approach, except it looks like water has pooled under the seats in a couple of places and rotted the floor (there are at least 2 holes under there). I was thinking of somehow taking out the seats then taking out as much of the floor as I can before I do the floor webs and check the centreboard casing. Will taking the seats out create huge problems?

    Rod, I'll see if I can get those measurements for you over the weekend. Feel free to come over anytime you need to measure something.
     

  15. goolawah
    Joined: Oct 2005
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    Location: Brisbane, Australia

    goolawah Junior Member

    I don't think so. It might affect the approach you take. If there had been any sign of rot in Lulubelle's seats, or then floor under them, I think I would have replaced them. You only want to do this job once and it doesn't seem worth economising on a bit of ply, then wasting the greater cost of epoxy and paint when you have to repeat work that wan't done properly the first time.

    If you remove the seats it means you can also replace the whole floor. If any seat components get damaged in the dismantling you can still use them as a pattern for a replacement.

    I found the most difficult and unpleasant task was ripping out the doubtful stuff. Often it was not obviously rotten, but had deterorated and various ways (mostly de-laminating). The difficulty was making the judgment 'how far do I go?'.

    Once the junk was removed I enjoyed the work of fitting new frames, centreboard and floor panels. It was pretty awkward fitting the replacement floor webs where they went under the seats. With the benefit of hindsight I would probaly be a bit more ruthless. We will probably have to replace the outer skin sometime but, without plans, it would have been difficult to do the inside and outside at the same time.

    Now that Rod has progressed the plans so far you have a 'plan B'. If it all gets too hard you can simply build a new hull.
     
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