FWIW, this is not strictly true. I've got several designs with tumblehome and no obvious sheer line such as my microBootlegger Sport below. I still use my standard strong back. If you have an idea you can usually work out a solution that works.

Hi, Nick - that's actually exactly what I meant. The reason I used tumblehome as an example is because I recalled a video of yours in which you didn't use the sheerline as the hull to deck joint because of the design's tumblehome.

What I'm trying to say is if someone looked at a particular example of a kayak design in which the hull attached to the deck in a certain way (or whatever) and concluded that this meant that all kayak hulls must attach to decks in that specific way, he'd be making a mistake.

In other words, it's not always obvious whether the designer or builder specifically chose to do something in some certain way for a specific reason, or if he simply happened to do it that way as a consequence of other design decisions, and if he'd made different design decisions then he may well have done it some other way.