I was talking to a woodworker friend of mine recently. He has some curved solid oak chair back slats on his workbench. He told me that the key to bending wood was not moister or steam, it is heat. He had bent these seat backs with just a heat gun. They looked good to me. Don't confuse this with a hairdryer (it does look like one) this is one of those high heat don't do your hair with it type guns.
Today I was joining the two lower pieces at the bow. I clamped the plywood to the cradle and continues forward to the bow with the stitching. As I work my way forward the amount of pressure increases dramatically the closer to the bow I got. I rigged up ropes across the hull and turned a stick twisting the rope to pull the sides together...I did this in three spots and it worked pretty well until I got to the last few 5 or six inches. I then remembered the heat gun trick. After applying the heat the bow pulled together with just my fingers. I will be be using this again in a couple of days when I stitch the sides on!
Hope this helps someone down the line like the many posts I have found on the forum. Hopefully this is one of those gov back moments : ) Thanks guys!