Hi berkeleyC., my first boat was a patuxent 17, being the first I had a great time building it, TAP plastics was right around the corner so that got me into more trouble. I didn't think the decks were going to be strong enough, so i glassed under the deck as far as i could reach with 6 oz cloth, no hatches or bulkheads so that wasn't very far. But TAP had this 2" unidirectional carbon tape..... oh why not a few strips under the deck won't hurt. I believe the directions then said 2-layers of 3 inch glass tape inside the chine (that was if you weren't going to glass the outside) while i was finishing the outside I thought "this tape doesn't weigh much" there went more on the chines and keel. Oh , and the deck was glassed also. This boat could cause damage if it fell off a car. 54lbs with float bags,deck hardware and rudder. Added all up , the bow and stern had something like 7 layers of 9oz tape and one layer of 6oz cloth. I would suffer spinal injuries before this beast broke. The rudder control was a pointer made out of 2" cut off the stern mounted vertically 6" forward of the coaming and connected through the deck to cables routed back. It looked like a little nose pointing towards the sky. lost track of original thread,,oh ,,,boat building