The key to acheiving graceful graphic designs in any medium is long, flowing curves. Due to the nature of the medium in this case (wood strips), you are forced into long, flowing curves since wood has some natural rigidity and brittleness. The bottom line is that its hard to go wrong - I took the same approach as Ross, starting with a general concept and just eyeballing different variations - don't limit yourself. A fairly elaborate design can add a lot of stripping time, but if you wanted a boat quick, you could buy a plastic one - and the stripping is fun anyway.

> I started building the guillemot recently and finally started stripping
> the other night. After installing three strips on each side, I'm to the
> DWL line on the forms at the mid section of the boat. I would like to add
> an accent strip near the water line and my question is; Does the strip
> look best following the DWL line all the way from stem to stern, or should
> I follow the curve of the other strips a little? I put a strip on with
> clamps and discovered that I'll need some very long cheater strips if I
> follow the DWL at the stem. Other opinions would be very helpful.