The design requirements of a shell are different than for a kayak. Fish form tends to track very straight due to the narrow stern you are pulling behind you. This is good for a shell and may be good for a kayak if you want a straight ahead sort of boat. Also shells need to deal with a constantantly shifting center of gravity. They need to fight the tendancy to dive at the end of the stroke. Having volume placed forward will provide the added buoyancy required, so fish form makes sense for a shell.

> I recently tried an Alden Ocean shell rowing shell and was impressed by
> how easily it moved through the water even with a fairly substantial chop.
> (I am a VERY novice oarsman) The most distinctive feature was a strongly
> fishform hull ( ie widest beam forward of center ) I took basic
> measurements and am considering building a kayak to similar lines. Does
> anyone have experience with fishform hulls? benefits? problems? I figure,
> it has worked well for fish for 350 million years (my apologies to any
> creationists in the audience) so it can't be a fundementally flawed idea.
> I would appreciate any thoughts.