Hi Paul G.,

What would be your central panel made of? If a Union Pacific iron horse isn't available to steam a ply panel in, you would want to use a veneer panel or a special bending kind of ply, I guess :>)
Anyway you'd have to do some smoothing on the fore strips where they connect to the center panel.
Since you've got some wood material that bends all right, why not go along that way and use only that covering to make the whole boat of?
Mind me, I can only boast a lousy try on carboard, but perhaps by splitting the panel(or scarfed panels) lengthwise along the keelson line, just like one opens a fish for dinner, and rounding the cutting lines so that you get one vee-shaped indent at each end, that'd have convex edge curves.
Stitching the two edges of the one-and-only panel would make an oval-sectioned, round-stemmed kayak.
You would trim out a coaming from the rounded deck.
The boat would have an oval cross-section, and would be very unsteady I'm afraid!
If so, she could still be a good sailing kayak with an outrigger and a pair of floaters made the same way as the hull, if not spoilers: small wetted surface!
Perhaps this could be tried with very thick linoleum around stations.
The question would be how to flatten down the hull's shape.
Mhhhhh...

By the way, have you seen the latest hybrid folding kayak development on the Sport Zölzer site? Amazing! They dunit!

Cheers

Eric

PS. Should Nick keep the Design Frame? Nobody chats there, all the design gets discussed here now.

: You can use the same process for a racing shell, and then row it.

: if you are looking at a mostly cylindrical shape there is some bending, in
: one direction, but not a lot of compound curvature going on. A simple
: round or oval hull shape is not a compound curve -- at least not until you
: try to taper the thing to create front and back ends.

: People are making hybrid boats with pywood hulls and stripped decks. i think
: there may be a range of designs suitable to hybrid boats with the center
: of the hull made from plywood, and the bow made from woodstrips. The
: stern, if not made from strips, might very well be squared off and made of
: plywood, too!

: Now that idea should set some minds to thinking.
: Here is the potential: Use just short strips for the ends -- no scarfing
: strips, easy to find short lengths of clear wood, not a lot of forms to
: cut.

: Make just three forms for wrapping the plywood around for the middle of the
: boat. The middle one would define the beam and the other two would define
: the transition between the flat sheet of material and the strips. Or use 4
: forms and keep them in place as bulkheads. use an 8 foot panel for the
: center of the boat and make the nose and tail about 4 feet long for a 16
: foot kayak.

: Far less fairing in the middle of the boat, and considerably less sanding.

: No fillets to tape and fill, except at bulkheads. Absolutely no seams in the
: cockpit area, so little drag over the skin of the boat.

: The deck could be plywood, or woodstrips, or a combination of both.

: Anyone up to trying to design something like this?