Hi Ron,
Yes, I'm pretty sure most of us D-F-D'd the bow-eye holes. I just can't imagine thinking about all that water surging against the bow without having protected the holes with epoxy fill. However, when I asked CLC's John Harris this question, he responded: "Drill-fill-drill would make it stronger, yes. I think I both painted the holes with epoxy AND used 3M 52-million, and have had no trouble with it. But creating a solid epoxy fill can only make it stronger."
Regarding the positioning of the holes, some builders scale the location off the plans. When I asked John Harris the location question, he responded: "I went looking for an actual printed measurement for its location and couldn't find one. Maybe it's somewhere in the vastness of the documentation, but I made a quick diagram. This shows the bow eye location if you measure down with a flexible rule around the profile of the stem." He sent me a PDF file which I can email you, but his diagram locates the center of the bow eye as 31 1/16" below the top plane of the breasthook, measured with a flexible rule along the curve of the bow.
There is at least one blog detailing an approach to the bow eye installation. See Dana Cole's 3/15/15 entry on
http://danacolepocketshipbuild.blogspot ... date=false. I had also asked CLC their opinion of installing a reinforcing bit of wood on the interior of the bow to distribute the load on the bow-eye (as Dana did in his build). Their reply was that reinforcement seemed unnecessary given the overall construction, but such an installation could be done while the bow compartment was open - but not after closure when the only access was through the inspection hole.
Hope this helps, and all the best,
Mark