I am not that far yet, but I thought they included strips of wood for hull planking? Or are you talking about the precut pieces with the drain slots in them? If so, you can file them with a fine file and you won’t remove the straight edge. I am using a file to clean up all of the deck beams and it works great, it actually polished them and no sand paper is needed.A suggestion for future kits.
I do not like all the char on the planking.
Maybe a different source of wood for planking. Sanding the char is hard trying to keep the planks with straight edges.
My opinion only