Most of the designs out there have proved themselves to be "good", in that they work reasonably well for a certain number of people. I have never paddled a boat I though was "perfect". If I did, I would stop designing and if it wasn't my own design, I would by the boat. But any design is a series of compromises. Some of the trade-offs will be acceptable to some paddlers but not to others.

The ideal situation would let you try every design before you chose one to build. Unfortunatel, this is not practical. Instead, you need to read the descriptions of the boats carefully and then ask questions of the designer and others that have used the design. Most designers want you to be happy with the boat you build so they will try to give honest answers.

However, you need to ask the right questions. Given your height and weight, most designers (myself included) will say a design will work for you. However, if you like a boat that handles in a certain way, they will not be able to tell you unless you ask. The same goes for others that have used the boat. While they may like/dislike the design, you need to find out about the qualities that you are interested in.

A boat is only "bad" if it doesn't do what you want and there are probably a lot of boats that are not exactly what you want. But with good questions, you can probably find one of the many "good" boats. And even if it is not "perfect", you will enjoy it and you will be able to ask better questions for your next boat.

> I made up my mind to get a wooden kayak, all that's left for ne to do is
> choose one. I went over some reports in few websites, but all I found are
> people that describe how wonderful is the kayak they built. is there
> anybody that is willing to say: "I built this kayak, it took me 40
> hours more than the manufacturer estimation, I tested it, it does what
> it's supposed to do but it's not as manuverable/beautiful/fast as I
> thought it would be" or anyhting similar ?...