Hi Bob-

I thought I was being careful about keeping my hull and deck in shape when I built, but my schedule is such that I can only work on things a tiny bit at a time, and it took me nearly a week to build the cockpit recess and at the time I didn't realize that I was building in some distortion because the deck was upside down for so long. I had some places that were off nearly 5/8" on both sides when I went to attach the deck and hull, and it took a lot of coaxing to mate things up. I still had some mismatch- believe me! I sanded it back and put her together and it looks fine. Part of what took away some of the anxiety for me was a backup plan...

Bryan Hansel planned a black tape strip down the sides of his Iggy reproduction like the ones found on a lot of commercial composite boats, and I figured that if my boat looked crappy I'd do the same, or maybe use some marine paint and paint a stripe down it once I got her all finished up if I didn't like it.

Here's a link to Bryan's build log, so you can see how it looks and how he did it:

http://www.nessmuking.com/iggy5.htm

I was wondering how I could have been more careful about keeping things in shape, especially considering the short amount of time I have to work in any stretch, and someone sent me a link to Ulf Johanssen's web site. He uses battens that can either spread or compress the hull or deck that I'll definitely be using next time. I'm guessing this probably won't be your only build- nobody builds just one- so here's a link to his site for next time:

http://www.johanssonkajak.com/?p=980

m