I am one of those enjoying most messages from George, I feel that I can learn a lot from him.

If someone consider competing with him according to his challenge, however, they should be thinking about more than the weigth and strength of the hull!

They should think about the weigth of the paddler sitting in the boat. Crashing against a stone with a 6 year old kid inside could do no or little harm to a hull, while crashing against same stone in the same manner with a Japanese sumo athlete inside (imagine that we could put him inside) would be another matter.

So I guess that the first thing I would find out before really competing with George is what is his weigth and what is your.

When it comes to strength of boat, I believe George is not using Cedar, but redwood. Redwood, I believe, is stronger, and also stronger for the weigth. THe best spruce may be even better.

George is probably doing very nice strip layup, so that he don't have to fair much, this may be why he can do with very thin strips.

Then it is the glassing scheme, where we may maybe learn a bit from what George is doing.

:-)

Jan Gunnar