Along the lines of some posts earlier this year, I am building a shortened Guillemot S&G that will hopefully be suitable for poking around small rivers and protected flatwater.

The good news is that all the panels fit together well despite the fact that I shortened the design by about 12%.

The bad news is that despite the shortened length, the kayak weighs almost 45 pounds and I have yet to tape or fiberglass the outside. I'm thinking of naming my modified design BrickYak... or maybe (to give Nick proper credit) Guillemot-MT (for Guillemot Metric Ton).

That leads me to my question. Part of my problem is that Nick's design has 8 seams, and I apparently used too much tape and epoxy in each. With 8 seams to cover on the outside, I had planned to glass the entire outstide surface rather than tape the joints. Since there are 8 seams, my logic was that so much tape and epoxy would be needed for seams, a full sheath would not be much heavier and would save all the sanding time to feather in the tape edges. I estimate that a full sheath would add about 50% more weight than just taping - how much weight does a full sheathing normally add - so I can put a number on my 50%?