Coming along nicely John, must admit that when I planked my Billings Cutty Sark and Norden I only wetted the part of the plank I wanted to bend for about 5 minutes in warm water, and teased it into a bend using my thumb and fore finger of both hands with the piece at my ear and listened to the fibres becoming distressed. By the time I did that the heat of my fingers had the plank virtually dry. I then used extremely small brass nails supplied with the kit and some fast drying PVA, worked fine for me. The Planks have to be twisted and shaped near the stern and possibly the bow depending on the geometry. Will use this technique on my future S.Y. Scotia. Secret is to have the individual planks visible under the finished hull paint just as they are in a real vessel. In old wooden hulled ships the underwater part of the hull was copper plated to inhibit marine boring organisms attacking the wood and reduce marine fouling. Even today until relatively recently modern steel hulled painted vessels had a copper based paint to reduce marine fouling, but the copper in the paint is now phased out and other more environmentally friendly chemical additives are used. Hope this helps, cheers Derek