I cut the gains and planed the lands on the garboards entirely by hand. I modified a block plane with a guide block (as described in several books, including Greg Rossel's) to run along a batten tacked to the lower edge of the next plank. It worked, but after several hours of hand planing the very, very hard glue in the plywood I had to regrind and rehone my plane iron (even with intermediate sharpenings).

Strake 2, Bow

Strake 2, Stern

I've kept on cutting the gains by hand. It's a pleasant, quick job with chisel and shoulder plane. However, I had no desire to repeat the hours spent planing the gains and then sharpening. Fortunately, I managed to adapt my guide block to my power planer and reduced a five hour task to less than 45 minutes. And the carbide knives on the power planer seemed to survive the glue all right.

Strake 3, Bow View

When we hung the third pair of planks, we could really begin to see the Ness Yawl's beautiful upswept bow. We've been clamping the planks on with a combination of pan head screws and Iain Oughtred's plywood clamps. The plywood clamps work fine, but sometimes we need the extra holding power of screws. Also, screws are faster and at the end of a long day that's the best thing. Of course, I'll pay for it later filling all the screw holes.

Strake 3, Stern View

After getting strakes 2 and 3 on in the same week, we had some traveling and actual work to do, but then....

Click here to see the planked hull.