I had asked earlier about doing a sewn-on skin with a fixed coaming ring. Advice was to put stitch holes vertically in the fixed ring (as opposed to horizontally, through the actual coaming ring). This made sense, and I have drilled the holes.

As I near the point of doing this stitching, it appears there are 2 1/2 ways to proceed, and most of them seem risky. Risky mainly because there a lot of tension on the nylon sinew, both along the length of the thread, from cockpit to stems, and laterally against the seam, both fore, aft, and within the cockpit area.

As far as tension in across the cockpit area, I could reach in through a small hole and stitch, and maintain tension. This would mean stitching through skin one time, at top of ring. But, how much will the holes elongate, and lose tension?

Or, I could cut out the cockpit area, fold the nylon under, and stitch through both top and bottom of the fixed ring. This would mean re-acquiring tension as I stitch. Big problem here would be risk of losing the tension along the entire boat, from cutting the main stitching sinews.

So, a last option might be to save the cockpit stitching until after gooping: Would there be bonding of skin to the epoxied fixed coaming ring? Even light boding might make it practical to leisurely cut out the cockpit area, then sew through the skin only at the top of the ring.

Here it is, so far.
Thanks!