: Hi,

: New to the board but I've been lurking for the last year whilst I build my
: Night Heron (high deck version). I seem to be have run into a bit of a
: problem matching up the two halves of the boat. The bottom half still fits
: the forms alright but the top half seems to be out around 10mm vertically
: and about 15mm horizontally (each side) at the centre. The movement at the
: deck happend pretty much as soon as I pulled out the staples and has got
: worse over time.

: I glassed the inside last night and today put the deck back on the forms,
: hoping that whilst the epoxy was still soft I could push it back into
: shape and once the expoxy had dried it would stay there. I forced it back
: into alignment with some ratchet hold down straps which was partially
: successful but the amount of force required seemed excessive. I'm
: wondering if the two halves will ever go together or maybe I should just
: bite the bullet and try again.

: Anybody else out there run into this problem?

I have, and I imagine that others have, too.

On my wife's Guillemot, the deck was stiffer than the hull - the hull could be spread fairly easily, but it took a lot of tension to pull the sides of the deck in to meet the hull.

I used 5 or 6 stout oak sticks, cut to length force the hull out to about 1/4" (sorry, 6mm) narrower than the deck width. I then taped the hull to the deck, starting at the ends and then moving to the middle. I used several web type hold-down straps to draw the hull in tight, then used packing tape to hold it in place.

You will find that the tension of the straps needs to be released at times to allow the hull and deck to be aligned. I found some locations where the deck was wider, and others where the hull was wider.

I think this is because the hull and deck have built-in stresses due to the curving and twisting of the strips to form the shape of the boat. Not only do the parts spread wider when you take them off the forms, they also twist and try to lengthen the hull and deck.

Once you are able to cajole the parts into place and fasten them together, the stresses will be balanced throughout the structure and the hull and deck will hod the final shape.

Don't try to start over on the deck - you are seeing a very typical situation. Everybody has pretty much had to deal with this.

I did find it very helpful to use hot glue to tack the interior fiberglass tape to the hull before putting the boat together. God bless Nick, but I don't have the patience to soak and unroll glass tape down the inside of a boat ever again. It is worth ignoring a couple of little spots of hot glue in the seam for the sake of keeping the tape in place.