hey lee, thanks for your kind words, some other thoughts:

i was just thinking about another way of looking at clc yaks. i don't know for the kits, but the book requires placing an oversized deck on shearclamped/shaped hull and then fixing down, then trimming to size. i think this approach misses an automatic alignment possibility.

the point is that the present shape is partially determined by any aligning or winding you do but also influenced in a major way by the hopefully consistent balanced bending characteristics of each sheerclamp.

but you KNOW beforehand what the deck curvatures will be at the various deck beam and bulkhead locations. You also KNOW what the beam will be at these locations. you KNOW you want it to be symmetrical around the ctr of the deck. AND you just have ONE simple deck(ignore the small end pcs) pce(you know the curvature at the cockpit, so make the join) that you will be attaching to the yak hull.

so the question is, why not preform and cut the deck, just taking local care that the curvature around the hatch cutouts is symmetrical at the front and back of each hatch cutout. and then the second layer for the flange of the hatches can also be extended to the sheer so it replaces or becomes new deck beams right to the sheer. the inside glassing can be done as well so the whole just sets up into a preformed single pc. since its fairly flat and you measured it anyway, it doesn't matter if its twisted a bit as when you do the attaching is when you would do the winding.

this way you ONLY have to worry about twist as the shear shape is given by the nice exact curve that's been put in the big deck pc. cause you can easily measure if there is an equal offset from the c/l anywhere you wish. you maybe have left a littel wiggle room at the cockpit at the abrupt curvature change front to back, but you have eliminated the necessity and maybe wt. of the shear clamp

that way all the hatch fitting could be done on the deck alone after its curvature has set before setting on the hull.

sounds long in the explanation, but maybe it would work. it might be instrinsically the most achievably exact yak of all.

-mick