There is just a little over 5 weeks to the start of the Mirror World Sailing Championships, this year being held at Lough Derg Yacht Club on 27th July. This year is the 50th anniversary of the introduction in 1963 of this great dinghy. To celebrate those 50 years and the fact the Golden Jubilee Mirror World Sailing Championship is being held here in Ireland, we will over the coming weeks on this Blog and our Facebook page highlight Sutton Dinghy Club’s significant contribution to the success of this historic racing dinghy as well as the Mirrors contribution to dinghy racing in Ireland in general.
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The Mirror was designed by Jack Holt for a competition run by the Daily Mirror newspaper back in 1963. The dinghy using a ‘stitch & glue’ construction popularized by Barry Bucknell, was designed to be home built from a kit and trailed on the top of a very small car. Costing just under £64 in kit form, two of the most memorable aspects of the Mirror were actually suggested by the Daily Mirror publicity staff. The red sails to match the newspaper’s front-page title and also the design for the recognizable insignia.
An extract from the original brochure also includes the most compelling sales pitch your NEVER likely to hear again. ‘…..She weighs less than most wives! At 98lbs ready for rigging the Mirror is a true car-top dinghy’.
The role of the Mirror dinghy in bringing sailing to the masses was recognized when the original prototype Mirror dinghy No. 1 was placed on permanent display in the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, London in 1986.