Time to try joining two pieces of plywood.  Never done it before so have spent the past few days reading all I can about it.  I purchased a small power plane in the summer knowing that I would be doing this.  Have never used one of those before either so another learning curve there too.  Experts say practise 'scarphing' or 'scarfing' on  scrap pieces of plywood so that is what I am doing.
I found several well detailed websites on the subject so chose one and began.  After about 30 minutes I had what looked like a pretty decent scarf.  This was on a thicker piece than I will be using for the boat so now I need to find some thinner pieces and have a go there.  I was pleasantly surprised at how well this first try went, though not perfect, and I think that was helped by the good quality of the advice on the websites. Planing across the surface of the edges seemed to work better than down them.

I am glad though at this stage that I am using cheap plywood as there is no room for error and doing the same thing on a $100 or so sheet of ply would be very intimidating indeed.

I like the electric hand planer too.  It was light, quick and easy to handle.

I am doing this because I want to.  It is fun so far but have I bitten off too much?
Keep going very slowly and time will tell.

Today's news :  from the Globe and Mail - 'Record high household debt in Canada triggers alarm'  Hope I don't contribute to that while making this boat!