Restoring a Mirror dinghy for Jaja

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As it arived home Its best side!  This was when I was about to start work on it. I photographed all the fittings and their stations to help when I started to rebuild it.

This was the port side front buoyancy compartment, a typical close up view which reveals the true state of the boat as is the underside of the dagger board case below.  Horrendous!

The bottom right-hand of the photo shows where I had started to clean up the bottom

2009 03 02 - More photos and explanations to be added later.

Some time in 2004 friends of a Glasson Sailing Club member brought a Mirror sailing dinghy up to the Club to sail. After several attempts to launch it they unfortunately created two holes in the hull in the buoyancy tank area.  Feeling disappointed and frustrated they left the boat at the Club.  As bonfire night approached they sent me a message saying put the boat on the bonfire!

I was horrified and begged them to let me have it - I said it was sacrilege to throw burn it up when I was convinced I could restore it to working order.  It semed the ideal boat, as it was for free, to give to our grandson Jaja and to teach him to sail.

Some time later I was to regret having taken the project on saying I should have let them burn it!

As autumn was firmly set in I finally got the boat home and Sue let me put it on the front lawn - the last time she's ever going to let me do that!

Next year, 2005, I started to work on it in June and spent about a month on and off stripping it and I think by now I'd made room for it in our garage.

The next bout of enthusiasm occured in May 2006 and after many hours of work, and about £100 I fianally got the boat up to the Club and on the water.

The Tamarisk had taken a back seat while all this was going on, no new work on it was done in 2006. This was also due to my lack of enthusiasm for work.

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My first sail on the 14 October 2006