I am not familiar with the other boats but have built an Osprey double. It went together well and I am very happy with the boat. Have been out for day excursions in a variety of conditions and found it totally satisfactory. Have also been out on one overnight/camping trip with it. On other occassions we have been out in fiberglass doubles (Necky Tofino and the Seaward Southwind) in your part of the country, Gulf Islands, Barkley Sound, Johnson straight. (I am in the Toronto area). Both of the fiberglass boats are bigger and heavier and have more storage. However I felt the Pygmy was just as seaworth and being lighter was obviously easier to bring up to speed. The obvious difference was that the Pygmy had less storage. My concern of you wanting to choose a smaller boat would be that you would not have enought storage space for the 4 or 5 day excursions you talk about. Good luck. Bye the way the building got me hooked and I am just finishing the hull on my Spring Run.

Hi Folks , I am new to kayaks and want to build a couple of doubles I want
: to be able to go with my wife and our 2 children aged 5 & 7 so what we
: need is a smallish double as the kids do little or no paddling prefering
: to drag their hands in the water.We want to go away for 4-5 day trips at
: the most . We live on the west coast of B.C. so want something fairly
: stable we both have a good deal of canoeing exp. The models we are looking
: at are Shearwater eider 18'6" x 26",Pygmy Osprey Double 20' x
: 30" ,CLC double 21' x 30" it seems that the Shearwater would be
: more manoeuverable and fast because of it's narrowness .If anyone has
: built these I'd appreciate any comments
: Thanks Bert