> I'll let others respond to most of your questions, but I wanted to say
> something about paint vs. varnish. If you paddle in an area with a lot of
> boat traffic you really should paint your hull a bright color. I've almost
> been run down a few times by (probably drunk) sports fishing boat
> operators. Imagine a 36-foot Hatterras coming at you out of the fog at 30
> knots, it's driver sucking on a Bud. In addition I've heard how hard it is
> for a rescue boat to spot an upside-down all-varnished hull. We often tell
> this story to our customers. It is totally irresponsible for any company
> to tell it's customers that all boats should be varnished. It's hard for
> CLC to say this since we use Shelman wood which has the best face veneers
> of any made. Varnishing all our boats would result in more sales if they
> were compared to others, but it wouldn't be the right thing to do. And
> yes, even strip built boats should at least have a bright stripe if they
> are paddled on busy waterways. Nick, do you agree?

> Safe paddling, Chris Chesapeake Light Craft

I am still building my first boat. If the hull looks as good as I think it will, I will varnish it. While I am new to paddling, I am not new to visibility issues (I have sailed, bicycled, and ridden motorcycles). Frankly I can’t buy the painted hull is necessarily safer than varnished hull argument. Most of the information I have seen is anecdotal in nature. Nigel Foster in his book does make some good points. He says, "colours [British spelling] in the red, orange, and yellow part of the spectrum are considered the most visible..." He goes on to say that black and white are also considered quite visible but only in specific situations. But let's look at the issue in more detail. While a sea kayak is 15 to 20 feet long it (hopefully) spends most of the time in the horizontal position. This plus the low profile of a kayak means that the hull will be obscured by even small swells.

Near the end of his discussion on kayak color Nigel Foster points out, "if you watch out for kayakers, it is usually the paddle blades that attract the attention first because of flashing movement." This is where I see the real safety benefits. A paddler is usually more or less vertical and is moving. These means that he\she could be seen over swells even if the kayak hull can not. Therefore I believe it is more important for the kayaker and the paddle to be brightly colored. If you want an extra level of safety a red, orange or yellow hull would be a good idea. However I do not see it as the black and white issue as other have depicted it.