Question #1: Is it possible (adviseable) to stretch out a Guillemot to about 18 feet by changing form spacings? I'm looking for a trade-off between a Guillemot Expedition and a regular Guillemot, and am considering either that idea or an Outer Island.

Question #2: Given that the chine has a fairly small radius, Nick's book talks about using half-strips in the chine area. Could, instead, the forms be 'squared up', i.e. given hard corners, and use 2 beveled strips to create a harder chine?

Idea: I saw a neat hatch set-up at a Michigan kayak symposium a few weeks ago on kayaks from a local builder: Betsie Bay Kayaks. (They build Greenland-style, low-volume, stitch-and-glue boats with a 2-part polyurethane painted hull.) They used small, round, standard hatches on their fore and aft decks, but also included what they called an 'Expdition hatch' which was essentially a removeable bulkhead directly behind the seatback. Apparently they created a lip with threaded receivers and foam gasketing on it, to which a bulkhead was screwed with a few knurled-headed screws. A bit more time consuming to open, granted, but how often do we need to pack large items, anyway? Has anyone here tried this method?

TIA Dean