The advantage for someone building at home is wood can be worked with commonly available tools. It provides the easiest, most cost effect method of making one boat. Fiberglass and rotomolding are cheaper only when done in mass production. You need to make on the order of 10 fiber reinforced boats and probably about 1000 rotomolded boats before they become cost effective.

As far as materials go, wood offers some advantages, although they may be offset by other disadvantages. For its weight wood is one of the strongest structural materials available. It is also very resistant to fatigue, it can be bent and unbent almost indefinitely without degradation. This is offset by the fact that wood will rot if left exposed to the weather and it is soft. Some of these disadvantages can be reduces by adding modern materials. It is also very labor intensive to turn a tree into a boat.

For the purposes of this group, the primary advantage is: building a wooden boat is within the means of the average person with some time and a basement (or living room, or porch, or garage). While some other materials may offer this same advantage, none are as easy or as available. It doesn't hurt that people tend to find wood pretty.

: I'm calling on all wooden boat building gurus out there to help me make an
: argument for wood kayaks over just fiberglass. Beyond aesthetics, which is
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: and glue boats over their glass counterparts? Help me out.......