So yesterday and today I cut out the bottom and the sides. Things went relatively smoothly and without major hiccups. My lines weren't as straight as I would have liked with the jigsaw, and a few times I came perilously close to cutting off too much, but disaster averted, for the most part. I flipped over the first side onto the remaining ply, traced, marked bulkheads, labeled everything so nothing got lost, and cut out the starboard side. This time, I gave myself a little extra with plans to plane it down to match, rather than screw the whole thing up. Initially I thought that maybe I had left too much, but my hand plane moves wood like grandma moves for her pack o' cigs. This is my first time using a hand plane, and I was very surprised at how quickly the job went. Everything matches everything else, so I'm feeling pleased. At the worst, I may have lost 1mm here or there, but things look good... (here's a pic of the bottom with 20mm extra)
...or so I thought, until I looked up at my two bow side sections and noticed an interesting, unplanned, unanticipated curve. From amidships, the gunwale is supposed to carve gently downward to the bow. My sides are perfect from stern to 3/4 of the way to the bow... when the gunwale gently rises up back the bow. EITHER: I haven't cut enough out from the bow, and I gave myself some generous extra working space, OR I removed too much in the forward section, just aft of the bow. I dipped down into the side, so to speak. Frustratingly, all the lines that mark the gunwale seem spot on, I remember sighting them and liking what I saw when I was lofting. I don't know what went wrong here.
Pause, while I go measure.
Compared with Storer's plans, all my points measure within 1/2 mm of where they should be. I don't know if this curve is an optical illusion, or what, but the math seems to be telling the truth.
WELL I'm going to go with what I have now, keep this in the back of my mind and hope for the best down the road. If I need to take some artistic license, so be it!
Being a total novice at boat building I too had some questions about the shape of the Goat sides when lofted. Turns out there is some magic sauce involved which turns funky shaped flat ply into beautiful hull sides once bent around the bulkheads. So if your dimensions are per plan the hull sides are good. Some of this was discussed on my building thread here http://www.woodworkforums.com/showthread.php?t=92912&page=2
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