The Mirror dinghy - the craft that brought sailing to the masses - has been named in the top 10 list of boats that changed sailing forever.
The humble plywood boat was launched by the Mirror in 1963 at a cost of £63 11s and was a bid to make sailing accessible to all.
Now prestigious sailing magazine Yachting World has put the dinghy at Number 7 in its survey of top 50 boats that have changed the sailing world.
The Daily Mirror signed up TV DIY expert Barry Bucknell and designer Jack Holt to revolutionise small boat ownership.
They came up with a craft that cost £63.55 in decimal money – and could be built at home using copper wire stitching and glue.
The dinghies, which had a distinctive red sail because of the newspaper’s red masthead and M logo, were just under 10ft - big enough for two adults and a couple of kids to sail yet small enough to fit on top of a family car.
Today more than 70,000 have been sold and they can be found all round the world.
Many have completed memorable sea voyages, and one fan even sailed his from Liverpool to the Black Sea.
Double Olympic silver medallist and round-the-world yachtsman Ian Walker, 42, said he owed his career to the boat.
Walker, who was a BBC sailing commentator during the Rio Olympics, borrowed one of the distinctive dinghies to teach his daughters to sail.
He said on the occasion of the dinghy’s 50th birthday in 2013: “I owe all my sailing to the Mirror. Its real advantage is you sit in it rather than on it. Children like the security.
“You can hardly go to sea or into an estuary without seeing a Mirror. It is part of the seaside.”
Daily Mirror Mr Larry Cooper has just received a kit of parts to build a "Mirror" dinghy
The boats cost £63 11s and were built at home by enthusiasts
Jeremy Pudney, President of the UK Mirror Class Association, said the dinghy had changed sailing in the UK.
The 78-year-old who lives in Chichester and belongs to the Itchenor Sailing Club, which has a large collection of 60 Mirror dinghies, said: “I used to work near the Mirror building on Fleet Street and I remember seeing where the Mirror dinghy was being exhibited as something that could be built at home.
"People could go in one of the show rooms on Fetter Lane and at lunch time and see how it could be built.
“The Mirror dinghy showed sailing could be spread to a much wider group of people because it could be bought as a kit and built quite often in people’s living rooms and even bedrooms.
"It was one of these amazing boats which was small enough to be built but when you sailed it a grown up and two children could sail it.
“Obviously now a lot of the boats are made of fibreglass but you can still buy a Mirror kit of wood which you can assemble yourself and do up.
Daily Mirror Mr Cooper now builds his Mirror Dinghy in the garage of his Hastings home
Fibre glass and lots of glue helped make the vessels watertight
“Schools used to take on the kits and produce Mirror dinghies as part of their woodwork classes. One of the great thing about the Mirror dinghies were they weren’t too long and you could put it on the roof of a car, you could see Mirrors on the top of Minis so you didn’t have to buy a trailer.
“It really brought sailing within reach of a much wider public and the country has gained by that ever since.”
The Mirror dinghy is used as a training boat for young sailors but it is also a class recognised by the Royal Yachting Association and raced widely in the UK and abroad.
Pudney, who taught his four children to sail on the Mirror, said: “I have put two lots of children through sailing where they learnt to sail in the Mirror.
"I taught the children in my first marriage to sail in a wooden Mirror and that was then sold on and then eventually my son bought back the very same Mirror and has taught his children in the same boat before selling it on to another family.”
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