Slow but steady wins the race. That’s what I tell myself, anyway. After much internal debate, I decided to install a ‘chine plank’ in the no-man’s land between the keel planks and the rising parallel planks coming up from the sheer. The motivation was largely aesthetic, as was not crazy about how the planks on most Uluas seem so parallel and don’t express the sheer or rocker well, and partly practical as with each successive plank the ends required more and more edge set keelward which led to gaps, and my perception that the lines of the planks would seem to bend down (with the hull right side up) at the ends, just where I would prefer that they bend up.
The keel planks were installed so they lap on to the top of the stems, and then the sides were planked up from the sheer till they mated to the keel planks at the ends. The chine plank location was determined by setting it parallel at stations 9-10-11 and letting it fall fair to the ends, keeping in mind that an integer number of planks would be used in the resulting gaps where the girth was largest. In hindsight, I think it might be nice to have this chine plank fall to meet the point where the straight part of the stems run into the curved part that are part of the keel profile.
One upshot is that there are now two shutter planks per side, and the tapers on the ones being filled first are pretty extreme. The next to last plank had a 16:1 taper in the bow, and the narrow shutter plank is almost nothing but taper. Luckily, the planking up from the chine plank should lie fair with little edge set, and fairly short taper sections to match, at least for the first four of the seven planks that will fill the upper space.
Next: sharpen up the block plane for the final assault.
That looks clean and tidy!
Good job.
Peter
What length are you building your Ulua to? Keep cranking!
Dan