The kit looks pretty decent, though I do have some issues with it. While I'm very happy not having to glue the two sides of the hull together I can't say I'm much impressed with Trumpeter's rendition. There is a very noticeable seam on either side of the bow. It looks like they made the entire hull except for the bow, and glued that one separately.
The same is also true of the red lower hull. It has the same large seam. These will both need some heavy sanding.
As I said this is my first attempt at PE. To get my feet wet I decided to start with the life rafts. These require that the molded on bottom of the raft, looking like a lattice crust pie, has to be removed. After taking about 45 minutes on just one raft I began to wonder, "why am I doing this again?"
Finally here is the full hull, with deck.
I estimate that at this point I have about 3 hours into the build. I have to put it off until at least Wednesday evening after checking out some reference material of my good friend Bob, Capt Nemo, to see where many of the PE items need to go.
