> Pre-bending the deck before glassing sounds like a great idea. I'll bet
> that did make the installation much easier.

> This boat's for my wife who's 5'2", under 120lbs, and is unlikely to
> try and surf Pipeline or Mavericks with it. So I probably don't need quite
> that much reinforcement. But I'll likely go with Lee's idea of glassing
> the underside between the aft bulkhead and hatch (with your pre-bending
> idea), and maybe add an extra deck beam back there as well.

Just another thought (what I did on my boat):

In reading about epoxy, I read about chemical bonding and secondary bonding. Chemical bonding is uncured epoxy to uncured epoxy, where secondary bonding is epoxy to wood or epoxy to cured epoxy. From my research, chemical bonding is stronger. So, glass the underside of the deck an hour or so before you install it (with slow hardener, that is). This way, the epoxy has not set up yet, so it will still bend quite easily. You also get the benefit of a chemical bond.

By the way, I did add an additional deckbeam aft of the foam bulkhead for good measure.

Ken