Hi, my name is Dean and I build kayaks in the living room of my apartment.

I got my kayaking baptism on a 4-day trip in the Apostle Islands (Lake Superior, off of the Northern tip of Wisconsin) 2 summers ago in a plastic rental Prijon SeaYak. That having been my only kayaking experience, I jumped right into building a Pygmy Arctic Tern last winter.

I had a blast this summer trying out the boat on lakes Superior, Michigan, and Huron, occasionally in small craft advisories with up to 7-foot seas and 25-knot winds. I never got tipped over by a wave or inattentiveness, so I decided this summer to build a new boat that would be more in the intermediate-and-up category -- Jay Babina's "Outer Island." I am about 2 weeks into the stripping process and am finishing up the hull. I hope to have it finished by Christmas so that I can try it out in some pool sessions yet this winter.

After that I want to do some distructive panel testing and possibly build Chris Cunningham's Greenland stitch-and-glue kayak that was in the Fall '94 Sea Kayaker magazine. If I do build it, it would be to: 1) try for a lighter-than-ususal boat based on whatever the test results show, and: 2) compare the Outer Island's vee'd/rounded hull to the Greenland's hard-chined hull at the same overall 18' X 21" dimensions.

Dean