Hey DJ:

I strongly recommend you get them both lined up before you glass the inside seam. My Guillemot Expedition Single had a deck/hull gap of about an inch.

I started by aligning the ends and taping them securely. Having thus surrounded the problem I worked my way to the center of the boat a small step at a time, alternating bow - stern - bow - stern.

I used webbing straps and a 3 ft long piece of wood as a tourniquet to close up the gap in a spot, then liberally applied enough strapping tape to hold it, and then moved over about six inches. Actually, I had my son wind the boat shut as I applied the tape. It was a four handed job for me.

I agree with the other posts about the boat being easier to compress than expand. I first tried a bottle jack in the hull, to expand it to meet the deck, and it was a miserable disaster.

Ed Valley