Nine rows against eight

Started on the starboard side, and unfortunately straight back into repair work. At the bow I had marked out the waterline neatly, but if I followed it, the distance between the wale and the waterline was slightly larger on the port side than on starboard. So I had decided to make the distances equal. Result: the waterline no longer ran straight. In the first photo the plates on the left run in a curve, while on the right they follow the grid closely. So off they came again, and now everything runs straight once more. I still find it odd that those distances differ. The wale appears to run identically on both sides, but apparently it is off by a millimetre or so after all.

Nine or eight

Then a strange problem. At the bow the rows come out at about the same height on both sides, on the left perhaps a millimetre higher. But on the port side I needed nine straight rows to arrive at the bow with four rows; on starboard it is only eight. A day later it was clear to me why: on the port side the plates run up just a little more steeply, so I use more rows there before I reach the bow.

What I should have done: copper nine rows amidships first, then run a line of tape from the bottom row to the bow that matches the port side, and copper upwards from that line. Then you always come out level. Fixing it now means removing eight rows over half the hull. That is quite a lot.

Hans remarked that you never look at both sides at once: it is something I know, but someone else will rarely see. Jaques and Piet agreed; Piet added that photos are more merciless than the naked eye and that it will go a great deal better on the next model. boris279 set the bar higher: do what you have to do properly right to the end, otherwise you are fooling yourself.

I have chosen not to tear it off; that would be too invasive. On starboard I am letting the line at the bow continue in line with the port side, so eight rows instead of nine. At the sternpost it will be nine, because there everything does line up. That way I expect it to show the least. For the next gore lines, at any rate, I know that I have to start from the bottom.