New 'Old' toys

I had one of those eBay moments the other day.   I was strangely drawn to an auction for a Mirror Dinghy.  The paint looked poor but the other pictures showing the inside look remarkably good. It had the added bonus of coming with an outboard engine.. I have a Laser dinghy that I keep at the sailing club, I bought it for James but he has since discovered cars and has no interest in sailing, this would give me the drive to sell the Laser on as I am a bit too sedate to be balancing on a those kind of boats, a Mirror is more my style.. Older, creaky, leaky and slow :)   it had to be worth a punt, no pun intended.

UP FOR GRABS IS THIS GREAT LITTLE

MIRROR DINGHY

comes with all rigging

anchor

gaff rig

2 hp motor

all the original paperwork 

(from when it was first built)

the only thing that it hasnt got are sails

she needs a little TLC i.e. rub down and repaint apart from that she is sound .

No reserve

 she must go owing to other commitments

no spare time to use her

This is cash on collection only and winning bidder to make contact within 48hrs of end of auction and collection within 7 days of end of auction.

LOW STARTING PRICE

so grab a bargain.

HAPPY BIDDING

The lack of sails is not a problem as I have two spare sets from previous boats plus mast, boom, gaff, rudder etc. I put in a late bid of upto £200 and I won at £125.. Happy days. All I needed to do now was pick it up from Northampton (£130 miles away), find time to tidy it up, sail it and sell my Laser to pay for it :(

I hadn't asked any questions before winning so I was a little disappointed when I found out the outboard was a British Seagull of unknown condition.  

The next day we set off up country to collect my new toys. When we arrived the couple that were selling the outfit were absolutely fantastic. The chap had bought it as a project but poor health had got in the way. A real shame.  Before going to the hull he led me to the shed where he stored all the accessories.  He pulled the seagull out and I was pleasantly surprised. It looked in good condition and had the nicer looking brass fuel tank.

We loaded all the bits onto my makeshift mirror trailer and headed home.  I was slightly gutted when the mast dropped onto the road and shaved a good chunk of the top in a very short space of time, good job I have a spare. That made me think back to my motorbiking days, how quick would your knees and elbows disappear if you fell off at 60 -70 mph?

Anyway, back home and really happy with my purchase.  There are some mad websites around Cruising in Mirrors and racing with Seagulls. Click on the links below if interested.

Weblinks

Mirror cruising  

Seagull race day