"Scott Downey" wrote in message
...
I know a lot of you dont like the idea of planks pressuring each other but
is not this what happens anyway when they soak up water sealing the hull
in
a conventional design?

Yes. But in a conventional carvel hull, the caulking absorbs the extra
dimension of the expanding wood. When you glue is with epoxy, nothing is
left to absorm the expansion and the planks will eventually burst off the
ribs. The reason red cedar is used for stripplanking is because it is a soft
wood and therefore producing less pressure when it swells. Quite a few
builders, Paul Gartside is one of them, even state that layers of glass on a
larger stripplanked hull are not strong enough and they advise to cover the
strips with diagonal layer(s) of plywood first. I have also seen an oak hull
built this way; bead an cove strippplanked, covered by two layers of ply and
finished with for-and-aft running planks to add extra body and give it the
traditional look of carvel.

Meindert