I was nervous about cross section number 7 on the Nikumi that I'm slowly but surely building, since a slip of the jigsaw left a defect. Short on plywood, I tried using it anyhow. You can probably guess where this is going: When I tapped the peg in, the cross section pretty much shattered into an unusable mess. Removing it wasn't hard, but putting a new one in its place will probably be.

How critical are each of the cross sections in the Nikumi, anyone know? The Sea Bee seems to get along with just four of them. Can I live without one of them?

If I do need to replace it, could I support just the gunwales and the deckridge with two beams at a right angle, joined by a halved joint, and leave the chines free at that cross section (having them secured at cross section-8 )?