> Ken,

> How concerned are you with floatation? A lot of whitewater kayaks
> "float" underwater.

> You could scale down just about any strip-built by moving the forms closer
> together and scaling the bow and stern. With some care you can do this
> with stitch and glue kayaks too. Skin kayak designs are the easiest to
> modify.

> You could do an Alaska Recovery Kayak, but give it a stronger keel line so
> that it will track nicely.

> What type of wood construction are you interested in?

> Mike

I am mostly interested in cedar strip construction. That's what I've always liked, but I built the CLC first because the strip boat looked too difficult for a first project. After reading Nick's book, I now realize that it is more time consuming, but not really more difficult. I have very little desire to tackle a skin-on-frame boat, at least right now. I talked to a couple of people about the Alaskan Recovery Kayak, but they indicated it was shaped more like a whitewater boat, and would not have the tracking I was looking for. I considered scaling down a strip-built boat, but I don't know which one. Nick's book shows how to scale a Great Auk down to 14', but that's still longer than what I want. I know I can't go to a real narrow design (21-22" beam) because the boat might not have enough displacement to carry me. Also, I need a design where the keel extends to the stern, otherwise the keel line won't be long enough for good tracking once the boat is scaled down.

As for flotation, I was planning on installing hatches and bulkheads. I wasn't planning on adding any other flotation to the boat.

Ken