Here’s the plan, but I have no idea how swiftly or sluggishly it will unfold. Much of this could happen on one or two good days, or it might drag out. You know how it goes: I’ll edit this post as it unfolds and see about providing telling photos.

I made quick work of smoothing out the tapers with an orbital sander. Ten minutes, tops. A spring clamp midway along the tapers joins the sheer clamps beautifully. The next step might be joining the sheer clamps with epoxy. I can use screws or very reliable clamps to hold the joint while continuing (carefully) with subsequent steps. I don’t think stitching will help anything at the ends just now, but it will need to be done before making final adjustments to the panels’ alignments. But! Advice on the CLC builders’ forum to this very point is to not epoxy anything until all the stitching is done, the boat is turned rightside up, winding checked, and alignments verified. Then loosen just enough stitches to put epoxy between the sheer clamps before proceeding with filleting and seam taping. Think I’ll go that route.

Some especially useful threads:

https://www.clcboats.com/forum/clcforum/thread/35952.html

https://www.clcboats.com/forum/clcforum/thread/25018.html

I stepped out of the shop this afternoon and when I started to clean up, I realized that it has come to this:

This has been an off kinda day. So let’s just call it done and pick this up again

Tomorrow.

Use some wood blocks or something similar (what would that be? empty coffee cans, of which we have many) to raise the sheer clamps above the work table. That will make it at least possible to reach under to aid in stitching. Some experimentation is in order.