We are strip building a 14 ft Auk using "southern cypress" (you know from the swamps) and so far have been very pleased. It is very light in color with nice grain, super flexable (stem laminations w/o wetting or steaming), very light and sands well. The only step we havn't been involved in was cutting the trees! We sawmilled the planks, ripped the strips and routered the cove/beads. Epoxy and glass are due this week and the fairing has taken 2-3 hours w/ 2 people sanding. I will post the hull/deck weight prior to glassing if anyone is interested. Looking foward to starting a Guillemot using the same materials. A link is attached to some of our photos.

: From my limited (previous) research on the Web, Alaskan Yellow Cedar =
: Pacific Coast Cypress = Pacific Yellow Cedar, but the wood is neither
: actually a cedar nor cypress. It is not the same cypress found in the
: Southeast U.S., nor a type of cedar, like red or white we are familiar
: with. I didn't (and perhaps still don't) understand the terminology, but
: if we are talking about the same thing, this is a "sunshine"
: yellow wood, fairly dense, with a faint grain pattern that isn't revealed
: when the wood is wet or coated with epoxy. It carves beautifully with a
: hand plane, but seems heavy, and I don't know how difficult it would be to
: bend in a complicated strip-built application.

: John