Timber vs Fibreglass    Rig    Buying New   Buying Secondhand

So you're thinking about buying a Mirror  - great idea!  This page will help you think about how to find the right Mirror for you.

Timber or Glass?

The vast majority of Mirrors in Australia are timber plywood boats, so it goes without saying that timber boats are easier to find.  Fibreglass hulls are a much more recent innovation and so there are fewer of them.

Fibreglass (also known as GRP (Glass Reinforced Plastic), Plastic, or Foam Sandwich construction) boats are built of fibreglass and polyester, vinylester or epoxy resin laid over a core of either high-density close-celled foam or core-mat.  Their outer layer will usually be gel-coat rather than paint.

Timber boats are built from 4.5-6mm plywood by the "stitch and glue" method, with the panels held together by wire staples or stitches and then secured with glue fillets and fibreglass tape and resin.  Boats are then either varnished or painted, or a combination of both

Here are a few considerations to think about:

Performance:

If you are intending to race, a good timber boat will perform as well as a good glass boat.  Both can be found at minimum weight with a good degree of stiffness.  At the 2026 Nationals, construction was a 50:50 split across the fleet and 4 out of the top 10 boats were timber, with a glass boat coming 1st and a timber boat coming a close 2nd.

Routine Maintenance:

All Mirrors (and all boats!) will require some maintenance on an ongoing basis - the replacement of worn ropes or frayed rigging and broken cleats, as well as bits like bungs that sometimes just "disappear" is just part of life.   Keep an eye on what is wearing out and you can avoid a disaster.  Having a basic repair kit with some spare line, a bung or 2, some shackles and some bungee and basic tools can often save the day!

Timber hulls are generally regarded as needing more regular maintenance, depending on how they are stored (inside or outside, exposed to UV or not) they will need re-varnishing and re-painting every few years, as well as the odd touch up in between.  You can use specialist marine paints with enhanced UV and water resistance, but given that most Mirrors are stored dry, good quality exterior grade domestic paints & varnishes are quite good enough and give you a wider range of colours to choose from.  Often the challenge is finding somewhere to carry out the maintenance - a garage is ideal but it can easily be done in a carport and occasionally boats are allowed inside to luxuriate in the heat of the loung room for a winter touch up.

Fibreglass hulls generally don't need much routine maintenance, no need for paint or varnish, which is often seen as their major advantage.  However, if you decide you don't like the colour a re-spray is a major job requiring much labour, specialist knowledge and equipment and can easily add weight to the boat.

Repairs

Timber:  If you have basic woodworking skills and tools, then most repairs to a timber Mirror are relatively simple, for a cost you can even order whole replacement panels from TridentUK.  Small holes and dents can easily be repaires using an epoxy filler and/or glass tape and epoxy resin, larger holes can be patched with a suitable piece of marine plywood and strengthened with glass tape and epoxy resin.  (Polyester resin and filler is a viable alternative and was extensively used in the past).  Sandpaper and a little primer and paint can have your boat looking pristine again fairly quickly and cheaply.  Often fellow club members can give you pointers and assistance if you are unsure of how to go about a repair.

If you don't want to repair a timber boat yourself then you will need to find a boatbuilder and pay the associated bill.

Fibreglass:  Small dents and nicks to glass boats can be easily filled with an epoxy filler (although this will not look pretty as the colour will not match the gel-coat), anything bigger will usually require a trip to a boat builder and an associated bill - this will allow for the filling of dents, the replacement of damaged sections of foam, new layers of fibreglass and resin and the matching of gel coat colours. 

Rig - Bermuda or Gunter?

Mirrors were originally designed with a Gunter rig - with a short Gunter mast which was then extended upwards with a separate Gaff (you will often hear Mirrors being referred to as being "gaff-rigged" which is technically not quite right).  This design meant that all the spars (mast, gaff, boom) would fit neatly inside the hull for storage and transportation.  Gunter masts can be timber or aluminium and gaffs are timber, they are usually paired with a timber boom.

Bermudan rigs (also known as one-piece masts) were introduced in the early 2000s. A Bermudan rig is fractionally faster than a Gunter rig (AS Yardstick 142, as opposed to 143) and is generally slightly easier and quicker to rig as the Gunter rig requires lacing the bottom portion of the sail around the mast.  Bermudan masts can be tapered at the top, to reduce weight and make a more flexible spar but they can also be a consistent section from top to bottom. These features, have tended to make Bermudan masts popular for racing boats

Well-tuned, both are equally competitive.  

Gunter masts and gaffs can be easily found and are often given away for free.

Tapered Bermudan masts are generally imported from the UK, every so often one will come up second hand.  For a more economical solution the same mast section used by Sabres and Pacers meets the class measurement rules and can be bought locally.  Often old Sabre or Pacer masts can be found free or cheaply and cut down and re-rigged for use by a Mirror.

Bermudan & Gunter Rig side by side	Gunter Rig	Bermuda Rig

Buying a New Mirror

Options for a new Mirror are limited in Australia, although the Association is exploring options to make buying a new Mirror easier.  As the Mirror is a WorldSailing Class and is one-design, all builders and kit-producers need to be licensed by World Sailing.  Currently there are two realistic options for obtaining a new boat*:

1. Import a fibreglass boat from the UK - both TridentUK and Winder build Mirrors and can help to arrange shipping to Australia.  
2. Import a timber kit from TridentUK and build your own timber Mirror

*until 2025 Dinghy Sports in Sydney were licensed Mirror builders, they still have the moulds but at the time of writing (March 2026) their  licence has lapsed and would need to be re-licensed in order to build Mirrors.

Buying a Secondhand Mirror

Second hand Mirrors are much easier to find, although they vary widely in build quality, condition, price age and weight.

The first Mirrors were built in 1964 and large numbers of them were produced right up to the late 1980s-early 1990s.  A guide to the afge of a Mirror, based in its hull number can be found here.

Timber Mirrors have either been built from a licensed kit or by a licensed builder*.  Some home-built Mirrors are works of art, others are someone's first attempt at DIY so the quality can be variable.  Things to watch out for:

1. What do you want your Mirror for?  For serious racing you ideally want a boat with a fairly high hull number, probably over 69000 and which has a measurement certificate, although there are competitive boats around with much lower numbers.  For club racing, cruising and learning to sail you are really looking for a sound boat.
2. Decide whether you are up for a "project" or want a ready to sail boat, if you want a project, are you willing to patch small holes? big holes? replace panels? re-tape seams?
3. Are there any holes in the hull or big dents and spongy bits?  This could mean big repairs.  Often water gets into the ply where it is sandwiched between the inner and outer gunwales and leads to rot, especially where the boat has been stored outside upside down, this is a leading cause of a Mirror being unsalvageable.
4. Do all the panels fit together cleanly?  If the wooden triangles at the back of the boat don't fit square to the transom and gunwales/side panels then the boat may be fine for cruising and fun racing, but is unlikely to be competitive
5. is the fibreglass tape secure or starting to loosen/peel off? - retaping seams is not hard to do but it does mean some work and is likely to need doing at least partially on boats with numbers below about 20000
6. Is the hull number either engraved in the transom or on a blue World Sailing/ISAF plaque in the cockpit?  If there is no hull number and the sails are not original then it can be hard to know the age of the boat.
7. The more varnished timber you can see, the easier it is to tell the condition of the boat as dark patches are a tell-tale sign of water ingress and cracks and mends in the plywood are easier to spot.
8. How much does it weigh?  The minimum weight for a Mirror hull (without foils, spars, sails etc) is 45.5kg, if it weighs over 60kg then forget it even for a cruising boat - 2 teenagers or adults should be able to lift the hull easily.

*this should be true for all Mirrors, even before they became an "International Class" in 1990, plans for the Mirror have never been made publicly available.  There are of course "Bronze classs" boats that have been made as copies of Mirrors or have been so extensively re-build that there is little, if any, of the original boat left - if you want to race at Nationals or Worlds level then you will need to beware of these boats!

Fibreglass Mirrors come up for sale less often than Timber ones, are generally more sought after by the racing community and therefore tend to be more expensive.  The main builders you will come across are Vasco, Dinghy Sports and Winder, all should have been well built, but you will need to check their condition:

1. Are there any significant dents or dings?  If there is any fibreglass showing then this will need to be repaired sooner rather than later.  Check along the chines which is classic place for boats to be dropped and suffer damage.
2. Are there any cracks?  These are most common around the thwart and where the side tanks meet the hull, These are generally a simple repair, but factor that into the cost.  Some cracks may be superficial cracks in the gel coat, but deeper cracks are a sign of something bending and or splitting where it shouldn't.
3. Does the boat flex?  if you push down on the tank tops, foredeck or hull with the flat of your hand does it flex easily? (It shouldn't). This can be a sign of a weak structure - frames separating from hull or deck and/or ageing fibreglass.
4. Does it have a measurement certificate?  Most glass boats will have a certificate.