Brian -- Let me set the stage: I built a small boat 35 years ago but never built a kayak, I was a draftsman 45 years ago, but retired after 35 years in the computer industry, I'm now counted with the hobby woodworkers, and I am researching building a kayak now. I bought Nick Schade's book and read it cover to cover at least twice. Then I sat down to draw up the stations. For at least 3 days I called Nick everything (fortunately, to myself) bad I had ever heard or envisioned. On the 3rd day, I tossed that waste of money in a junk area of my shop. About 2 weeks later, I started going over the offsets again because I wanted to be sure what I was talking about when wrote to Nick to tell him what I thought of him and his skills, etc.... As I said, fortunately I had not shared those thoughts with anyone else. After about an hour, everything started to fall in place. Now I have a set of stations that I think will be the beginning of a nice kayak. Now my only question is am I going to build strip or plywood. My suggestion? Do one or more of the following; 1)throw the plans in the "junk" area of your den/shop, 2)slug down a 5th of cheap whisky,quickly 3)let your wife have a shot at those plans (sometimes works at my house), show them to a friend after 2 or 3 weeks in the "junk", 4)after you get finished reading this, go tell everyone you know about my stupid response. After all that, try the plans again. Good luck!!!