Playing With Boats

Over the years, I’ve written a lot of book reviews for publications such as The International Journal of Maritime History, The Northern Mariner/Le Marin du Nord and WoodenBoat magazine. Lately, I’ve also been reviewing boats. This is, if anything, more fun than reviewing books about boats, though unfortunately you don’t get to keep the boat at the end of the review(!).

Last year, I reviewed a Sea Flea outboard hydroplane. This year, it was the Mirror Dinghy and a Peterborough Canoe Company “Nomad” longitudinal strip outboard runabout.

If you’ve spent any time at all in sailing clubs in North America or Europe, chances are you’ve seen at least a few of the many dinghies drawn by the English designer and boatbuilder Jack Holt (1912–1995), who drew more than 40 boats during his long career. He was noted for his early adoption of marine plywood with a particular focus on dinghies that could be home-built by amateurs. Two of his more distinctive designs are the Enterprise (1956), with its baby blue sails, and the Mirror (1962), with its red sailcloth. Interestingly, the Enterprise (The News Chronicle) and the Mirror (The Daily Mirror) are, along with the DN Iceboat (The Detroit News), three small craft designs sponsored by newspapers that have gone on to great success.

According to the international class association, more than 70,000 of these small dinghies have been built worldwide, and the Mirror is now an international one-design class overseen by the International Sailing Federation (ISAF). Mirror hull #1, EILEEN, was constructed in 1963 and is now in the collection of the National Maritime Museum Cornwall in Falmouth, England. Originally gunter-rigged, the class now also permits a Bermudan mainsail. The Mirror was an early design to employ stitch-and-glue construction. Home-built boats still use this method, but some professionally built hulls are also available in foam-sandwich fiberglass in the United Kingdom. The first generation of spars was all wood, but masts are now commonly aluminum.

The dinghy measures 10’11” LOA x 4’7” beam, with a board-down draft of 28”. Sail area is 49 sq ft in the main, 20 sq ft in the jib, and the spinnaker adds an additional 47 sq ft. The racing crew is two, but the boat can easily accommodate three adults or an adult and several children for daysailing. Plans for this strict one-design are not commercially available, and Mirrors are sold only as complete kits, hull kits, bare hulls, or sail-away boats.Mirror dinghies can often be found on the used-boat market in central and eastern Canada, particularly through the website of the Ontario Mirror Dinghy Association at www.mirrorsailing.ca.

Mirror dinghy kits are available in North America from Mirror Sailing Development, 34 Lee Ave., Bradford, ON, l3Z 1A9, Canada, 905–775–4771, lbellamy@ca.inter.net. General information about the class is available from the International Mirror Class Association www.mirrorsailing.org and www.dinghyalmanac.com/mirror, where you will find links to national associations in Australia, Canada, Ireland, Japan, The Netherlands, South Africa, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

The Nomad was from the upper end of the Peterborough Canoe Company’s outboard offerings. Owners could have the boat as an open outboard or add steering, windshield and deck hardware to turn the Nomad into the double-cockpit runabout shown here. The sail-away price in 1959 was $730.00.

Over the years, Ken Lavalette and his crew at Woodwind Yachts in Nestleton, Ontario, have restored more than 50 cedar-strip boats. Well-loved and well-used, they often come into his shop more than a little worse for wear and leave looking a whole lot better. As he worked on these boats over the years, it occurred to Ken that often the number of hours required to restore them wasn’t far off what it would take to build one from scratch. At 15’ LOA and 5’ beam, the Nomad was big enough to carry some people and some gear, but small enough to be easily trailered and stored. Was there a market for a new traditionally-built cedar-strip runabout?

There was only one way to find out, so he measured an original 1957-58 Nomad and built the robust, nearly-solid mould required for this method of construction. He left the hull shape unchanged from the original, but increased the scantlings of the stem, keel, ribs, transom, planking and deck slightly based on what he had learned from his many restorations of this type. Underway, the boat feels solid and reliable. 25 mph is not at all fast by today’s standards, but it’s a speed that will get you where you want to go and still let you have a pleasant conversation on the way. It might also save enough on gas, even with an older two-stroke, to let you pay for dinner when you get there.

With simple lines and an elegant all-bright finish, the boat is a head-turner both on the water and on the road. New Peterborough Nomads built in the traditional longitudinal cedar strip technique and equipped with re-built 1950s outboards are available from Woodwind Yachts. Used cedar-strip boats in a variety of sizes and configurations can often be found for sale in classified ads and at antique and classic boat shows and auctions.

Both reviews appear in WoodenBoat Magazine’s 2014 Small Boats, which is on newsstands now.