Mirror No 1

Current boat name

Mirror No 1

Boat class

7277

Number

1

Function

Sports and Leisure

Type

Length (m / ft)

3.3 / 10ft 10in

Beam (m / ft)

1.41 / 4ft 7in

Leeward

Keel - fin

Masts

1

Rig type

Gunter Sloop

Propulsion

Sail

Designer

B. Bucknell/J.Holt

Design date

1963

Date of build

1963

Place of build

Leicester

Present use

Museum/NMMC

Many thousands of people have been introduced to sailing through literally learning the ropes in a Mirror dinghy. After two prototypes had been built in 1962, the actual production design, reflected in Mirror No.1, owed itself to the application of a combination of two complementary, but quite different, sets of skills possessed by Barry Bucknell, the BBC TV Do-It-Yourself expert, and Jack Holt the highly successful dinghy designer. The first two prototypes had been built to Bucknell’s own design utilising a novel ‘stitch and glue’ resin and fibreglass construction that was highly suitable for inexperienced amateurs constructing boats from pre-cut panels that were to be supplied in kits. Holt retained this principle but re-designed the boat within Bucknell’s general lines. Consequently, Mirror No 1 looked quite different to the prototypes but, benefiting from all of Holt’s accumulated experience, accommodated a wide-range of needs from family outboard-powered pottering to good quality racing. In the late 1950s and early 1960s there was a vogue for national newspapers to back promising new dinghy designs. Assured by Holt’s involvement, The Daily Mirror threw its considerable promotional and marketing weight behind the design giving it its now very familiar name but also red sails reflecting the newspaper’s ‘red-top’ categorisation. Despite an initial mixed reception, Mirrors were soon being built in great numbers. Dining rooms all over the country were converted to temporary workshops and on many occasions a proud owner discovered that a hull was just a fraction too large to be removed upon completion! Sail numbers increased exponentially. The first National Championships were held in 1963 and the inaugural European Championships in 1966. During subsequent years the Mirror was subtly altered although never departing far from the original design. A spinnaker was introduced, the original standing gunter lug rig gave way to Bermudan and GRP hull construction was permitted. Full International status was gained in 1989 and, later, the RYA included it in its ‘Pathway’ programme. With over 70,000 Mirrors produced the design has progressed beyond that of a much-loved versatile family boat to a foundation stone of the UK’s race-training programme that many of the country’s most successful sailors spent much of their early racing career in. CDWT/GH August 2010