: can we sand it down a little finer?
: by your estimate how much can i weight down the G-S before it becomes
: dangerous?

Define dangerous. Some people like to paddle kayaks that sink. They get boats that are extremely low displacement, and they can dive them under the water and scoot along submerged before popping back up to the surface. Go figure.

Obviously there are many designs, but most 17 foot kayaks will need to be loaded in the 400 to 500 pound range before they start to exhibit these neutral to negative bouyancy characteristics.

Unless you plan to lose a lot of weight, or paddle with no gear at all, look for a design that matches your weight as close as possible at the design waterline.

You can also get data from some designers about how much moe the boat sinks when weight is added. This may be expressed either as the number of pounds needed to sink an additional inch, or number of inches (or fractions of inches)the boat sinks for an additional 100 pounds.

With such information you can get an idea of how he boat will sit on the water with a typical load. For example, if a boat displaces 300 pounds at the design waterline, and sinks an inch for every 125 pounds that are added, then with two paddlers and gear totalling 550 pounds the boat will be riding 2 inches below the design waterline.

A common design waterline is 4 inches of draft. With this load my example would be drawing 6 inches of water.

Now, if the side height of this boat is 12 inches, then there will be 6 inches of freeboard. On a canoe you don't want to get less than 6 inches of freeboard, or every wave will end up inside the boat. On a decked craft like a kayak, you won't get water inside as long as the cockpit is above the waves. If the cockpit is well sealed with a sprayskirt you cna get a bit lower down, too. While 6 inches is still a good height to be above the water, you can increase your freeboard a few inches by raising the height of the cockpit and the coaming. Making a coaming 1 inch taller adds little weight, and can somewhat compensate for the boat sitting a bit lower in the water.

Think of such minor design changes as changing the deck height and/or cockpit coaming height only after you have found a good hull design which can carry your weight and perform the way you want.

it is that or (ugh) diet.

PGJ