Mirror 1675, or Miss Friday as we have come to know her, is a very special little sailboat. Not only is she a 53 year old handmade wood sailboat but she was built in England in 1965 by the grandfather of a good friend of ours. She was handed down through the family to his parents who sailed her often in their younger days. Sadly his father passed away and his mother chose to downsize houses which meant Miss Friday would no longer have a spot to hang in the garage. That's where we entered the picture. Once we heard the story of the little sailboat we had to see her. As the story goes Adrian's grandfather who built her did not have to work on Friday's in England. Once he got her built she became his "Friday Mistress" as he was sailing her every Friday when the weather permitted. So his Friday Mistress turned into Miss Friday and the name stuck.
Adrian loaded her up and brought her to his house where Cindy and I could meet the little girl. We found her sitting in the grass by his garage in pieces. I had done a little research on the model and knew just enough to be dangerous but in about 10 mins I had her all rigged and ready to hit the water!
She is just the neatest little sailboat! Not bad for 53 year old sails! It is so simplistic that it cracked me up how some of it worked. Between that and the fact that I am a sucker for a good story I had to have her! Adrian said his mum really wanted to see her go to someone who was going to fix her up and sail her again. I assured him that was our intention because to just look at her she was ready to sail away if she only had water and wind. We agreed on a price and then returned the next day with our flat bed trailer to take her to her new home. Lets see, that makes watercraft number #9 for us. Must be like shoes, you can never have enough.
I could see a few areas of concern that needed to be addressed before we tried her out but I was hopeful we could at least sail her once to see how she did before we really dove into the restoration process. After making a few repairs I thought she was ready to give it a go so we loaded her back up on the trailer behind Juicy the Jeep and off we went to Starve Hollow state park. Again, it only took a few minutes to get her rigged and ready. Life jackets on, just in case. Time to splash her in the water.
Cindy and I carried her down the boat ramp and set her in the water. Before we could even get our first foot in her she started taking on water, at a rather brisk rate I might add. It became apparent in just mere seconds we were not going to be able to sail her and if we did not hurry up and get her out of the water quickly we might have to drag her out with Juicy! Well Buggers!
Back home we went, a bit bummed we did not get to sail her but excited at the prospect that we could eventually sail just mere minutes from our house instead of having to drive an hour to sail the Memory Maker at Lake Monroe. Don't worry. Were keeping the Memory maker, for now at least.
With other projects to do first, Miss Friday sat patiently in the garage with the Memory Maker all winter waiting on me to get time to fix her. Well After finishing our bedroom built ins I finally made the time to get started on her. The first thing to do was to get her flipped over so I could start stripping away all the layers of paint from the last 50 years. Luckily she is very light, maybe 90 lbs, and I was able to get her set up on saw horses by myself as Cindy is still recovering from her ACL surgery.
Here she is with all the keel strips removed and waiting for the temps to warm up enough that I can start stripping the paint. I had to make some measurements so I knew were the stern hardware went once I am done with the fiberglass and epoxy.
It finally warmed up enough and the fun began.
If you have stripped paint before you know it is far from fun. As I stripped off the layers I could see numerous stress cracks in the hull from age and a few areas of damage that had been repaired with what looks like JB weld. No wonder she made a better watering can than a boat when we put her in the water.
I am down to the original paint on the bottom now but the stripper wont touch it.
Once I get to that point on all the sides and stern I will start sanding with 60 grit and make the needed repairs to get her water tight again. Once that is done then I can cover her with 6 oz fiberglass cloth and start rolling on the epoxy.
Cindy has already picked out the color of blue she wants me to paint the hull so hopefully in a month or so we will be ready to head back to a local lake and give her another try. If your wondering why I am trying to protect the gravel in the garage with the tarp it isn't so much about protecting the gravel as it is being able to clean up all the pieces of paint that I scrap off her. We are finally going to pour the concrete in the garage this year and I can't wait!!! We just hope we can still get the Memory Maker in the garage door once we do as it will be a bit shorter opening with the concrete.
Hopefully the next time you see Miss Friday she will be naked!!!
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