First the line, then the gluing

After the trouble with the rows I put the ship aside for a few weekends and took up another hobby for a while. Johan, who is now on his own plates, recognised that: after a weekend of gluing he could not face another plate. Today a day off out of the blue, so back to gluing.

This time I first marked out the line with tape, the way it runs on the port side, so that I end up with two matching sides after all. Exactly at the spot where it went wrong before.

In Johan’s photo I saw that he had not coppered down to the keel first. I wondered whether he would then come out in the middle, or get a gore line running the whole length of the ship. On mine you can see that I first coppered down to the keel amidships, so that I keep as many whole plates as possible. Johan had marked out the middle section with plates on double-sided tape and came out nicely there; at bow and stern his rows run at an angle, and he can live with that. It is his first boat of this size, and there always has to be room for improvement on the next project.