As I understand it, graphite is a really, really stiff material, but it is not all that tough (prone to compression failure and brittle fracture).

Kevlar is super tough, but not all that stiff.

Fiberglass is reasonably tough and reasonably stiff (and still affordable!)

If you really wanted to make a revolutionary, space-age kayak, you could use all three, but in different areas according to their strengths and weaknesses.

Shawn

> Aha! So, it's just like when I was 6 and my older brothers and sister used
> to tell me that ants were stronger than me. ;-) Or when they say things
> like "pound for pound Roy Jones is the best fighter out there".
> But I could still squash that ant, and Mike Tyson could (if he weren't
> incarcerated) squash Roy Jones.

> So, to get a steel canoe the same weight as a kevlar canoe, the steel one
> would be about the strength of that foil on a Hershey's kiss. Not a good
> deal. Taken in the context of that article, it sounds like Kevlar is some
> Star Trek engineered wundermaterial. Hey, maybe it would have been good if
> the Enterprise were made of Kevlar? Thanks for putting it in proper
> context.

> Chris