Hello again,
I was going to take some photos today but i can't seem to find the tripod. On the bright side, the rest of the planking was ordered and will be here soon. The cedar will not plane down to a sixteenth without splintering all over the place, doensn't plane very well when placed on the hull and is too thick as-is to bend to the complex curves im starting to get into. I can use it for much of the simple bow section but i decided to do the job right and ask a family member away on vacation to pick up some basswood for me.
I do have some sketches to show. The first is the center section idea, as suggested by Boatmadman and Oldiron (the hull will be permanently bolted together, btw, saves me having to worry about wear and tear on the joints, but also means i have to save weight)
I was thinking by shrinking the size of the hold, as suggested, i could run electrical bits in the dry portions and put in foam for extra buoyancy.
The other main problem i came across was making a rudder that could be taken out of the way to access the prop. I want to permanently screw the brass bottom bracket in place, so i thought of turning down part of a 3/16 brass rod to fit into square stock which would itself slide through the circular rudder tube, then sliding that into the next largest size square stock. The larger stock would form part of the rudder itself and have a 'nub' on the bottom that fit into a socket
This way, the whole assembly locks together with no slipping, the rudder shaft can be lifted out easily and the rudder will fall to the side. I don't think it would come out under any conditions on the water because that would require the entire shaft to move over three inches straight up.
Thanks for all the feedback and kind comments, and i promise to find the tripod ASAP. More planking was done, i tested out some putties and i made the basic forward superstructure in the meantime.