I've gone with the fair curve twice, and was amazed that I came in at exactly the design length, even though Yost does give leave to tune the stems to your own eye. The third time, I extended the stems a bit, and put 6 extra inches into a 15-foot Sea Tour R.

If you're coming up a bit short with the fair curve, it may be due to minor "errors" in your notch depths or form placements. I'd check them over -- including the max width in the cockpit area -- but not get too obsessive about it. Every copy of a Yost boat is going to be a bit different.

: OK you are probably getting tired of me already but I have another
: question. I am building a Sea Tour 15 EXP ( like you don't all
: know that now ) but I am at the point of fitting the
: "stems" and I am curious about something. I used full
: 16 foot boards and am building a 15 foot boat so my gunwales and
: all of my stringers are longer than I need and I noticed that I
: could cut them where they naturally cross and have a fair curve,
: but it leaves me a bit shy of my "design" length. If I
: go to "Correct" overall length it forces a
: "reverse" curve into all of the longitudinals and
: gives me a bit of a Hollow on the bow. Either it is easy enough
: to keep the lines fair. I am assuming the shorter one will be
: easier to cover (pvc no stretching or shrinking )

: How do some of you other Yost builders go about designing your
: plywood stems and determining how long to make them ?

: Thanks for the input
: Dan