I used some oak that I had in the shed to make a new section of gunwhale for the bow. This is now glued into place with West system resin.
New gunwale detail
When the resin went off I drilled and screw fixed the gunwales for additional strength
screwing the gunwales
Be careful when buying brass screws, these are scarce now and most of the screws that you see in the hardware stores are yellow metal and will corrode in salt water. I went to a chandler to get proper brass screws, and I never throw out brass fittings or screws!.
Mikeyoung42's Blog 
October 30, 2009 at 5:36 pm
I am planning to take the decks off my Mirror. Are the decks glued on or just nailed and taped? (I have a leaking seam in the starboard bouyancy tank. The foredecks are have been repaired several times and as it is hull number 477 I would like to check the condition inside the other bouyancy tanks.)
November 2, 2009 at 9:11 pm
Hi Robert,
There is a timber lip around the topsides inside the forward lockers. In my boat this was in ok condition but I was reluctant to start hammering in brass tacks in case the lip parted company with the topsides. In the end I used stainless steel 3mm screws (3x 20). I used the screws under the area that would be covered by the tape(one every 150mm), but they worked well. A word of warning, even though the screws that I used were in the modern style and therefore self tapping I drilled first as the lip that supports the foredeck is quite fragile and would split. I brushed the lip with a generous amount of west system resin as a glue for good measure and then taped the deck into place. This is where I made one of my mistakes….. To match the new deck in with the rest of the seasoned timber I mixed a stain that worked really well but I should have stained the foredeck before taping as the stain does not penetrate where the resin is! , a pity because the rest of the repair was ok.
Its a really good idea to look into those tanks and I would advise fitting an inspection hatch. Also while you are in this locker I would paint it with the best paint you can find. I used international as to me it is simply the best stuff. If you do find any rot int he lockers don’t panic… there are a few options !
477 is an old hull- 1969? I think mine is 73 ish
If I can be of any more help please feel free to ask. I will stick up some more of the pictures of the deck repair on the blog , they may be of some help
Regards
Michael