Here's a veiw of the hull after the first eight planks were installed. You can see the deep belly this hull has. In the full sized boat, this is where the engines are placed and a large weight installed to make this hull self-righting. Self-righting means that if this boat capsizes, she'll return to upright all by herself.

Here's the hull a few planks later. Notice how I started planking at the keel outward. When I reached the chine at the aft end of the hull, I ran a single plank from that point to the bow, laying that plank as straight and unbent as possible. That allowed me to see where the partial planks were going to be needed, as you can see here (look carefully and you'll see two partials already in place). Dumas wants you to plank from both the keel and sheer (hull top) at the same time. I thought this was a awkward way of doing it and did it this way instead. Worked out quite well. Don't be afraid to experiment a little when planking. My favorite part of building these is planking the hull. I learned a lot from reading books about real boat contruction.