: Slowly making progress on a Morris-inspired recovery/retrieval kayak.
: I made way too many ribs to get to this point. I found that white oak is much
: easier to steam-bend than ash.

Ash actually bends really easily, provided that it's straight grained. What you experienced sounds like the result of irregular grain in your bending stock. I found some of this in my first boat, too. I used freshly cut red oak in the second boat. Machining my own stock allowed me to control the grain orientation and resulted in much easier bending ribs and coaming pieces.