Well, if you're following this story then you remember I had a depression in the hull after tying in the patches. I removed those patches and started over again. I went to Boatcraft to trace the original panels so I could get the true curvature of the panels into my patches. It worked! The lines on the patches shown in the picture are very clsoe to the original yak. See the pictures dated March 6, 2003.

I also figured out how to transfer the paper pattern of a panel onto wood in a very effective manner. If you look at the pic shown at my Yahoo site, you will see I have laid out the wood I want to trace the pattern onto. I weighted the paper cutout with whatever I could find to keep the paper pattern in place as I traced it onto the wood. I used a thin piece of plastic with a straight edge to trace small sections of the paper pattern onto the wood. By tracing small sections I was able to accurately duplicate the curvature in the paper pattern onto the wood. I cut the tracings out by hand using my mitre saw because I was able to cut very precisely along the lines drawn on the wood. I took my new patches into the garage and held them into place while I traced the end cuts to match the raw edges of the bow and stern ends.

The rest was basic stitching technique to tie the patches into place. With the hull patches in place the hull is as stiff as it was when I first built this Lightening 17 two years ago. The lines on the hull are smooth and flow from bow to stern. I'm very happy with what I have done so far.

Tomorrow I will go to work repairing the front bulkhead. I have to cut the top off of it and tie in a patch that has the sides to support the deck strips. While I was at Boatcraft tracing the hull panels I also traced the bulkhead and deck panels. I knew the tracings would make rebuilding the rest of the yak that much easier.

I offer many thanks to the incredible support Donnie and Jeff offer me while I work on this rebuild. I can't wait to start gluing and glassing.

Robert N Pruden