Gluing up the cracks

As there were a lot of small cracks in the planks I decided to glue them up with epoxy glue rather than replace them. Since I don't have any spare kauri lying around, nor really the skill or inclination to replace whole planks, and they weren't really big enough to glue in bits of wood, I just covered the outside of the crack with masking tape and forced as much glue as possible, tightly into the cracks. I'll do the same from the outside and hopefully that should hold it.
I riveted some plywood patches over some cracks to pull them back flush before gluing them up. It seems to have gone really well, and there is definitely less movement all round. Someone had tried gluing up the cracks before with an aerolite type of glue, so hopefully epoxy will be a bit better.

One interesting thing I found while I was cleaning out cracks was that a lot of the various gaps in the boat have hemp cord in them. I wonder if that is traditional and original or whether it was an idea from some plumber mate later down the line....? Whichever, I thought it was pretty cool.