This was an exciting time in the build, and you get to see a boat take shape very fast. This is also where a good cradle will start to pay off. I found that my panels just laid in place, no bending, forcing, or very much tension on the zip ties was required. The green strap was used to just hold the sides roughly in place, there was no pressure on the strap, and the hooks kept the panel in place as I set frames and started to zip tie everything together.
Frame alignment/squaring the boat: I had pre- marked the centerlines on all my frames, top and bottom and had snapped a chalk line down the center of the bottom panel when I had cut the frames/panels (I had also marked the centers of all my cradles) this helped in several ways 1- it allowed me lay the bottom panel, centered exactly on the cradle. 2- having the marks on the frames allowed me to set the marked frames to the chalkline on the bottom panel, and I was able to zip tie the frames in while also seeing their alignment down the centerline of the boat. 3- At this stage I had used auto jacks to level the cradle from my sloped garage floor and set the cradle level down the length and side to side, I then ran a string line down the length of the boat, at centerline, and was able to verify that my centerline marks at the top of the frames, lined up down the length of the boat. Everything lined up perfectly and after measuring diagonals from the stern, I had a little less then 1/16" variance in square,,,, TIME to start filleting…….
4- You will later be happy that you made those centerline marks as you construct your keel trunk, install your compression post, etc, as the marks have already been made, and by now you know that things will line up almost automatically. I hope that made sense and helps a little.
I plan to make the cradle available to any Colorado boat builders Spring/Summer of 2014 and would like to help anyone with an interest in getting their boat going, you can email me : i550sailor@aol.com
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