John,

I have made two ches 16's and a mill creek 16.5 with the stripped decks. As others have described, the best way to do it is add some additional temporary deck beams to the boat. Stripping is real easy. On my boats I used a real simple stripping pattern. Simply ran the ends of the strips past the rub rails and when deck was all stripped, cut the deck ends to fit the boat. As other's have said, once the strips are glued togeher, you pull the staples, plan and sand the top of the deck and then fiberglass it. Then you turn the deck over, plane the inside of the deck and then fiberglass it. The final stripped deck is real easy to install onto the hull as it really fits nice. Simply use some thickened epoxy on the shear clamp and bulkheads and tape the deck down till it drys. I also put a strip of 2" fiberglass tape along the shear between the deck and hull to protect it and also so I would'nt have to put a shear strip on.

Attached are some links to pics of boat and building process. Good luck.

http://www.geocities.com/jablot/Chesapeake_16.html Finished Chesapeakes

http://www.geocities.com/jablot/ Finished Mill Creek

http://www.geocities.com/jablot/Image20deck.jpg Stripping Deck