Help with finding a sail

Bill Black

Hello all ,

after taking a leap of faith I am now the "proud" owner of a boat I had never heard of before, a 15' Wineglass dinghy probably from the mid sixties ...... , what I am looking for is a mainsail as it came with no sails at all , by taking a few measurements the closest one that will work for a main would be a GP14 one so if anyone knows of something rolled up in a bag and unloved for small money it would be a great help . All I bought it for was to teach the kids how to sail but I didn't realise what a rare beast it was .

The jib is another matter, the forestay is not that long as it measures a max of 10' along the luff from deck to mast fixing and from the front deck mount to the jib cleat i have 6'8" I'm still googling for a suitable candidate .....

After much head-scratching I eventually noticed this near the mast step hence the name , a lot of tidying / cleaning and a bit of patching up now required :)

Bill Black

Actually a Mirror jib would work maybe ,

it has a 9.29' luff and a 5.04 ' foot so would fit ......

A Heron genoa would also work but i'd say hard to find its a 9.5' luff and a 6.5' foot

Regards

Bill

the beer revolu

Nice looking dingy. Had a look of a 420 about it. Perhaps a similar sail plan?

Bill Black

Its a nice shape alright ,

It came with no sails or any idea of its history .....

For something so old as it is a "Mark 1" from some of the details I have found i.e. 60's its in great shape , by measuring the mast track, forestay and boom lengths and so on I've come up with a few "donors" for the sails , I just want to show the kids how to sail and its a nice size cockpit etc. any old sails will suit in terms of condition . The other major item will be main sheet blocks but again I'll hopefully art something up . Maybe I'll take a few pictures along the way and update the restoration .

Setting off down the M50 with a known pair of not great wheel bearings was not fun but packed with fresn grease and at a max of 80kmh I made it to Enfield , bearings now renewed as I had some in the shed ...

Some of the info I found confirming mine is a MK1 as the mast step has no support :

"A Brief History of the Wineglass Dinghy

The Wineglass Dinghy was designed by Trevor Kirby (now living in Canada) in 1958. It was intended to be moulded in glass reinforced plastic from the beginning. The first prototype was called a Glass Class and was 14 feet in length. This was subsequently increased to 15 feet and the name changed to "Wineglass". The prototype Wineglass was built in 1959 by the first manufacturers Kirby Marine who started with No. 100.

The Mark I boat has a foredeck and a rear deck which both enclose a buoyancy tank accessed by a hatch. Early models had plywood covers to the side tanks, which were later discarded in favour of fluted moulded tops to the side tanks. Other manufacturers included French Brothers/Stebbings, Burnham Limited, Brabourne Marine, Tradercraft Limited Worthing. It was a later Mark I that won a Design Centre award.

Harviglass of Glossop built the Mark II boat, with production commencing with No. 407 in 1971. The decks were re-designed to reduce inherent buoyancy but because the hull and sail plan remained the same, the boat competed on level terms with the Mark I. The Mark II boat has no rear tank and the foredeck has a stowage space under. The mast (Fireball length) is stepped off a moulding on the skeg of the hull, not stepped onto the foredeck as in the Mark I. The Harviglass boats generally had GRP centreboards and all had decks coloured mustard yellow."