Many moons ago I used to trail my Mirror. Then we took up caravanning and I had a decision to make; either it went on top of the car, or it stayed at home. The latter was unthinkable and the former seemed impossible without the aid of my wife, who for some unaccountable reason would often prefer to nose round an old churchyard or museum than come out sailing! And as I could hardly drag her along just to help me heave the boat on or off the roof-rack, I had to find a way of doing it myself. So I made a pair of ‘legs’. Here’s how they look:

They comprise pieces of 1¼” x 1¼” timber with a wheel at one end and two small pieces of the same sized material screwed and glued as shown. Two holes are drilled through, their centres being 7½” from the lower edges of the extra pieces. The bolt is actually a bicycle spindle with two ordinary nuts on one end, locking together, and a piece of plywood just larger than the drain hole in the transom. On the other end is a bicycle wingnut.

You start by taking this off and threading the spindle through the drain hole, inboard to outboard. Then put the leg onto it so that the wheel is uppermost, as in Diagram A, and tighten the wingnut. Once you’ve fitted the second one, you’re ready to invert her.

I put a lifejacket under the port chine, thread a painter through the starboard jib fairlead and pull on this, at the same time as pushing down with my foot on the port gunwale. The life jacket protects the chine and the gunwale as she comes up on edge. From here, she’s ready to ease down into the inverted position.

The Mirror is now resting on her bow transom and the two wheels. The extra pieces prevent the leg from sliding sideways as they’re butted against the gunwale. All you now have to do is pick up the bow and rest it on the rear roof-rack, which you’ve thoughtfully protected with plastic tubing, old carpet, or what have you. It’s quite easy to lift one end. The whole boat only weighs about 110 lbs. and the effective weight you’re handling is probably only half that.

Next, having centred your bow on the roof-rack, you hop round to the stern and lift that. You’ll find you’re able to slide it forward and pivot the bow over and onto the forward roof-rack, and there she is!

The only difficulty you might have is when the jib fairleads strike against the rear rack. In most cars (although I haven’t tried this on the long bodied estate cars) the bow will already be on the forward rack by this time, and you’ll simply have to lift the stern an inch or two to ease her over.

Getting her down again is simply the reverse, and if you haven’t brought your launching trolley with you, then take off the legs and invert them, threading the bolt through the other hole as in Diagram B, and once again ‘Bob’s your uncle’. You’ll find you can pick up the bow and walk away with it and the stern will follow on its wheels; this usefulness will depend on having a reasonable surface to pull it over, of course. My wheels come off a mower and are too narrow for soft mud or deep sand.

One further bonus: the whole device is just short enough to pop in the under-mast stowage compartment, so you can take ‘em with you if you like.