: Is there any particular reason that the two halves of strip boats are joined
: on the sheer? Rather than separating the boat into a deck and hull, why
: not a left and right half?? (or to be proper: Port and Starboard)
: Just occurred to me, and I couldn't see any immediately obvious reason is
: all...

there have been good reasons given to split the vessel only at the sheer - and because of them, that is the first place to consider making the split.

but if the shape of the yak is such that the usual sheer separation would make the seam more visible or if one of the halves encapsulates significant parts of the forms, then other locations make more sense to be considered as well. In all of the cases, undesired shape movements should be monitored - up, down, twist, sideways.

in one of my yaks it made sense to make the split way higher than a typical sheer so that the forms were not encapsulated - so an exterior form was added to keep the structural shape when the split was made.
in another, the design approach dictates cutting many of the forms to keep the (design) integrity of 3/4 of the yak even tho the forms are encapsulated.
in another, the design application means the split has to deviate around a decorative feature - and in that one i screwed the rest of it up by putting the remaining split at the usual location - which in this case, has undesirable visibility. win some, lose some.

so there are good reasons to choose the typical approach, but if your case has idiosyncracies, then maybe other approaches would be more appropriate.

mick