Mark,

i built the arctic hawk as well as a number of the other designs so i can appreciate your comments. 

i think the first thing to say is that mark rogers is not only a designer, but a very fastidious, skilled and exacting builder.  if you have ever had a chance to inspect his work or talk to him personnally, you would be impressed.  there are very few people in the country who actually make a living as a builder and he is one of those few.

unusually,  one of the things that mark is rather unabashed about in this kit and in his 300 plus pages of instructions, is he is happy to share with you  how he would do everything in excrutiating detail.

so i think you kind of need to ask yourself, do you want to simply build the boat or do you want to build the boat that mark rogers would have built for you? 

if you simply want to build the boat, no need to fill the weave.  nothing bad will happen other than if you get dirt or sand or water in the the areas with unfilled weave, you will find it a bit harder to clean up/dry up.  if you want to build the boat that mark would have built for you, sand it as suggested and fill the weave.

executing the project according to mark's approach definitely adds time to the build.  and sometimes all the detail he tries to pass on is confusing.  that said,  i learned a lot from faithfully executing his build approach recommendations (especially with respect to getting a great finish).  compared to the other stitch and glue boats i built,  i spent almost double the hours working on my arctic hawk.

the result, however, was pretty spectacular....and i considered it worth the journey. i don't think i have built any boat (it was bright finished) that garnered as many positive comments by passersby.  besides the boat, i was especially pleased at the arsenal of new ideas and techniques i learned and use again from time-to-time. 

fwiw, i did end up calling Mark Rogers a couple times to have him talk me through a areas i found tricky and i also bought his skeg kit and added it to my project.  he was always very gracious in his advice.  and the skeg is a great addition to the project that is a lot easier to add while the boat is being built vs trying to retrofit it into a completed hull.

best,

howard

picture of the finished product

Your boat looks amazing !! I hope mine turns out as well. I sanded my planks and filled the weave with no problem. I am back on track. Thanks a lot for your insight. I now understand, after reading your post, how to proceed with this build.