Hi there Richard,

I'm not an expert but the Morris SOF was my 3rd boat so I have some experience to be able to give advice.

I also had some movement of the deckbeams and it doesn't seem to make much difference in the finished boat. In fact, I think that if you were to have perfect tight joints it may be more likely to break the wood when the boat flexes. It will flex in the water as waves pass under you, or when you pick up the bow and another picks up the stern to load it on the car you can feel and see the rocker change. A little "give" is good so the forces are passed along and distributed evenly over many joints instead of one joint trying to stop the whole boat from moving.

In regards to your steaming, I would strongly suggest soaking the ribs in water for a couple of days prior to steaming. This made all the difference in the world for me. I also was breaking every other rib until I tried soaking. I was using Ash for the ribs.
I used my kids plastic snow sled with enough water in it to cover the ribs and I set a brick on them to keep them submerged. Whatever you have handy that holds water will work.

Good luck with the project!

Ben Staley

: I have two questions. First when I took the temp. forms and windlasses off
: the gunnels they relaxed pulling away from some of the deck beam tendons
: 1/32" at the worst. I tried to fix them once but it happen again. It
: is not possible for me to pull the artificial sinew any tighter with out
: breaking it. Is this a major concern?

: Second I tried steam bending on Sunday with out much luck. I bent twenty or
: so ribs and only had two that did not break or fail in some other way. I
: started at 15 minutes and worked my way up to 20 this did not seem to have
: much effect on the bending characteristics of my white oak. Any thoughts?

: Thanks
: Richard