: Greetings,
: I set my glassed Georgian Bay out on the lawn today and then set the glassed
: deck on so I could take some cockpit orientation measurements. Too my
: surprise the deck is a full inch short. I built solid stem and stern and
: the deck doesn't reach to either. The deck is also wider than the hull by
: a half inch at the cockpit. I recall Spidey cautioning us to tape the two
: halves together at every opportunity during construction but that is
: seldom possible. Since separating them every day I've been glassing an
: inner or outter on either of them and taping is impossible during those
: operations.

This worries me also. My deck and haul had seperated in one area over 1/8" and the haul had pulled inward at this point. I put two web ratchet belts around this area with and tightened them, and to my surprise not only did the gap almost dissapear but the haul came back out to meet the deck. I leave these belt clamps on all of the time except when I work in that area. I didn't use tape to keep the haul and deck together but I did drive headless brads into the first deck strip that layed on the haul to keep them pretty much in alignment and after the deck and haul are fiberglassed I will seperate them and pull the brads through with plyers. I plan on fiberglassing the deck, then cutting the glass at the seam, then fiberglassing the haul and again cutting the glassing at the seam, then putting the ratchet straps on the whole boat and letting the epoxy cure real good before I seperate the halves and fiberglassing the inside.

The picture below show a simple way of helping to align the hall and deck, I think, since I haven tried it yet. But if you look at the two long strips as the haul and deck, and you make the small vertical pieces with about a 45 degree angle on them and glue one on the haul and one on the deck so they just miss each other when the deck and haul come together they will align them so you can glue the deck and haul together. Then you have to knock or cut the strips off. Thats my plan anyway.

John