> Since a kayak is weakest perpendicular to the strips (failures
> propagate by splitting the wood strips) and many damaging loads a
> kayak experiences are perpendicular to the strips and keel (scraping
> at landing ), it seems reasonable to make the direction perpendicular
> to the strips as strong as possible.

> Unless you have specific reasons for doing otherwise, I would
> recommend running all the cloth parallel and perpendicular to the
> keel adding as much strength to strips as possible.

After some reading of your web site, I understand that you advocate using two layers of thin cloth instead of just a single thicker layer, especially in areas prone to compression fractures, correct? Now as for the above quote, do you mean that one should run two layers perpendicular to one another? ie. Run one layer along the length, and another (or many overlaping pieces) crossways across the boat? Does fiberglass have one or two axes of strength?

Mike Spence