Bryan--I took at look at the offset tables for the first time since last year, when the book first came out. You're right, they are confusing.

First, the dimensions are given in feet-inches-eights of an inch. A plus sign means to add 1/16 to the dimension. So 1-03-4+ is one foot, three inches and four eights of an inch plus a sixteenth. Or 15 & 9/16 inches.

I also recall that on at least one of the plans one table was reversed, but I can't remember which one it was. I think a correction might have been posted on the Bear Mountain Boats web site.

It's getting late and I can't make any more sense out of the tables than you have, but I'll take a look at them again later this week and let you know what I find.