I've finished stripping the hull on my Night Heron - except for a few mistakes I made at the beginning (this is my first boat) it looks pretty good - beautiful lines, Nick!

I've flipped it over and am ready to start stripping the deck but I'm confused about how far the deck sheer strip must go. Should it go from bow-tip to stern-tip (as the hull sheer strip did)? In order to do so it will need to bend from being vertical in the middle to being horizontal (with respect to the floor) at the ends. To make things worse, at the middle of the kayak the sheer strips meet edge-to-edge whereas at the bow and stern, the side of the deck strip will have to meet the edge of the hull strip (and I just can't see how the transition from edge-in-the-middle to side-at-the-end is going to occur).

It strikes me that an alternative to the tortuous bending needed above is to cut the deck sheer strip off where it more-or-less naturally leaves the hull sheer strip (around forms 2 and 16 - about 2 feet from each end). Does it make sense to the more experienced builders out there? Do you have other suggestions about how to put on the first several deck strips?

Thanks in advance - this forum is a wonderful resource!

Wes