The Mirage 24 is a Canadian trailerable

sailboat A sailboat or sailing boat is a boat propelled partly or entirely by sails and is smaller than a sailing ship. Distinctions in what constitutes a sailing boat and ship vary by region and maritime culture. Types Although sailboat terminolo ...

naval architect This is the top category for all articles related to architecture and its practitioners. {{Commons category, Architecture occupations Design occupations Occupations Occupation commonly refers to: *Occupation (human activity), or job, one's role ...

ure design division at

C&C Yachts C&C Yachts was a builder of high-performance fiberglass monohull sailboats with production facilities in Canada, Germany, and the United States. C&C designed and constructed a full range of production line cruiser-racer boats, as well as custom ...

, as a

Midget Ocean Racing Club The Midget Ocean Racing Club (MORC) is an American association based in Severna Park, Maryland, that promotes and organizes ocean racing for small sailboats under a handicapping rule. History Founded in 1954, the club was formally organized a ...

(MORC) racer and first built in 1972.Henkel, Steve: ''The Sailor's Book of Small Cruising Sailboats'', page 298.

International Marine S&P Global Inc. (prior to April 2016 McGraw Hill Financial, Inc., and prior to 2013 The McGraw–Hill Companies, Inc.) is an American publicly traded corporation headquartered in Manhattan, New York City. Its primary areas of business are financ ...

McGraw-Hill McGraw Hill is an American educational publishing company and one of the "big three" educational publishers that publishes educational content, software, and services for pre-K through postgraduate education. The company also publishes refere ...

, 2010.

Production

The boat was built by

Mirage Yachts Mirage Yachts Limited was a Canadian boat builder initially based in Pointe Claire, Quebec, a suburb of Montreal and founded by Dick and Irene Steffen. The company specialized in the manufacture of sailboats. The company was founded in Februa ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, starting in 1972. It was their first production design and is a development of the Cuthbertson & Cassian designed Northern 1/4 Ton. The design is now out of production.

Design

Dick and Irene Steffen owned a yacht dealership for C&C Yachts, in

Pointe Claire Pointe-Claire (, ) is a Quebec local municipality within the Urban agglomeration of Montreal on the Island of Montreal in Canada. It is entirely developed, and land use includes residential, light manufacturing, and retail. As of the 2021 cen ...

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

. The company had been very successful selling C&C boats, but the C&C line did not offer a boat smaller than the

C&C 27 The C&C 27 is a family of Canadian sailboats, that was designed by Robert W. Ball and first built in 1970. The design is out of production. Production The boat was built by C&C Yachts in Canada, with some also produced in the United States. ...

at that time. Dick Steffen was a competitive sailing racer and thought that there would be a good market for a C&C-built 24 foot

keelboat A keelboat is a riverine cargo-capable working boat, or a small- to mid-sized recreational sailing yacht. The boats in the first category have shallow structural keels, and are nearly flat-bottomed and often used leeboards if forced in open w ...

for MORC racing. At his request Cuthbertson & Cassian designed the boat, but decided not to proceed with production at C&C. Steffen bought the design from them and founded Mirage Yachts in February 1972 to build the boat. The Mirage 24 sold well and the company soon had 15 employees building the boat model in their rented second floor facility in Pointe Claire. One factor driving the Mirage 24's strong sales was its racing record in MORC class events. Even 15 years after its introduction a Mirage 24 won the production boat division in the MORC national championships. Caught off guard by the success of the design, C&C decided to produce a competitor, the

C&C 25 The C&C 25 is a series of Canadian sailboats, first built in 1973. C&C also produced the unrelated C&C 25 Redline design. Production The boat series was built by C&C Yachts in Canada, but it is now out of production. Design Dick and Irene S ...

, which was very similar to the Mirage 24's design. The Mirage 24 continued to sell well and usually beat the C&C 25 in competition. The Mirage 24 is a small recreational

, built predominantly of

fibreglass Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass (Commonwealth English) is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass clo ...

. It has a

masthead sloop A masthead rig on a sailing vessel consists of a forestay and backstay both attached at the top of the mast. The Bermuda rig can be split into two groups: the masthead rig and the fractional rig. The masthead rig has larger and more headsails, ...

rig, a transom-hung

rudder A rudder is a primary control surface used to steer a ship, boat, submarine, hovercraft, aircraft, or other vehicle that moves through a fluid medium (generally air or water). On an aircraft the rudder is used primarily to counter adve ...

and a fixed fin

keel The keel is the bottom-most longitudinal structural element on a vessel. On some sailboats, it may have a hydrodynamic and counterbalancing purpose, as well. As the laying down of the keel is the initial step in the construction of a ship, in Br ...

. It displaces and carries of ballast. The boat has a draft of with the standard keel. It has a

hull speed Hull speed or displacement speed is the speed at which the wavelength of a vessel's bow wave is equal to the waterline length of the vessel. As boat speed increases from rest, the wavelength of the bow wave increases, and usually its crest-to-t ...

of . The boat is normally fitted with a small

outboard motor An outboard motor is a propulsion system for boats, consisting of a self-contained unit that includes engine, gearbox and propeller or jet drive, designed to be affixed to the outside of the transom. They are the most common motorised method ...

for docking and maneuvering. The design has sleeping accommodation for four people, with a double

"V"-berth A berth is a bed or sleeping accommodation on vehicles. Space accommodations have contributed to certain common design elements of berths. Beds in boats or ships While beds on large ships are little different from those on shore, the lack ...

in the bow cabin and two straight settee berths in the main cabin. The galley is located on the starboard side at the

companionway In the architecture of a ship, a companion or companionway is a raised and windowed hatchway in the ship's deck, with a ladder leading below and the hooded entrance-hatch to the main cabins. A companionway may be secured by doors or, commonly in ...

ladder. The galley is equipped with a two-burner stove,

icebox An icebox (also called a cold closet) is a compact non-mechanical refrigerator which was a common early-twentieth-century kitchen appliance before the development of safely powered refrigeration devices. Before the development of electric refrige ...

and a double sink. The head is located just aft of the bow cabin on the port side. Cabin headroom is .

Variants

;Mirage 24 :This model was introduced in 1972 and fits the standard height mast. The design has a

PHRF Performance Handicap Racing Fleet (PHRF) is a handicapping system used for yacht racing in North America. It allows dissimilar classes of sailboats to be raced against each other. The aim is to cancel out the inherent advantages and disadvantages ...

racing average handicap of 225. ;Mirage 24 SM :This model was introduced in 1972 and fits a mast that is shorter than the standard mast by about . The boat has a

racing average handicap of 228 with a high of 224 and low of 234. ;Mirage 24 TM :This model was introduced in 1972 and fits a mast that is taller than the standard mast by about . The boat has a PHRF racing average handicap of 228 with a high of 231 and low of 222.

Operational history

In a review Michael McGoldrick wrote, "the Mirage 24 belongs in that Canadian Sailboat Hall of Fame if only because it is the boat which launched Mirage Yachts...The Mirage 24 is pretty boat with a fair amount of interior space. This boat did very well in the MORC fleet, and its owners report that its performance really starts to shine in medium winds." In a 2010 review Steve Henkel wrote, "best features: This is a boat designed to go fast in Quarter Ton racing, and she does. Worst features: Her ballast is higher than her comps, which leads us to assume that she could be faster in heavy air but slower in light air compared to her comp titor."

References

External links