So far, so good...

Well, I trepidatiously snipped through as few of the zip ties holding the bow section together as I thought I could get away with, and the cracks stayed together. Tape was applied. Tomorrow more ties will come out and more tape will go on - let's hope for the best.

One step forward...

Success! The support patches on the outside of the hull were removed and the repairs did not instantly explode. Today, the ties will be tightened just a tad to bring all the seams into exact alignment and the first series of epoxy 'welds' will go in to hold the hull together for removal of the ties. Fingers crossed!

That Bee Boat

I don't think God intended me to do stitch and glue. 

After the instant destruction of what looked like a decent repair job on the fractured bottom plank of my new Bee, construction paused for the weather to warm to more epoxy-friendly temperatures. On Tuesday, the break was repaired again. Today, the seams were re-stitched with plastic ties and the bow carefully tightened...and tightened...and CRACK! the other bottom plank split.

After a suitable period of self-examination and meditation, I came to the conclusion that I was doing it all wrong. I screwed the bottom planks into the moulds and then forced the bow section up into position, threading the plastic ties through as the gap closed. As a result, brutal stresses build up in the wood.

On re-reading the instructions, I should be sewing the bottom edges of the planks together loosely, placing the pair into the moulds, and parting them so they come to rest in position. This process will, I suppose, allow the bow to adopt its natural shape and avoid critical stresses.

So I have completely undone the boat and will cut two new bow pieces out just as soon as I can locate my jigsaw in the pile of garbage in my shed.

My new boat arrives (in bits)

Unbirthday time at Chateau Partridge - the kit for my Bee arrived this morning!
Alec Jordan has been busy transforming Lillian Woods' plans into computer form, and cutting sheets of ply so I don't have to. Apparently this was not a trivial process as the plans assume a lot of 'fitting to shape' which makes calculating the actual shape of several of the inside panels impossible. But as long as the hull comes out correctly I am confident I can get the rest of the bits together.
Construction starts as soon as the Great River Race is over (Saturday) and Snarleyow is repainted and re-gunwaled and it stops raining. Could be some time...
Eventually, it should look like this: