: I paddled Dean Trexel's Outer Island recently (thanks Dean, beautiful kayak!)
: and am interested in getting some impressions from those of you who have
: paddled the Night Heron and Shearwater's Oyster Catcher, which appear to
: my untrained eye to all be rather similar. Also, for stitch and glue, how
: important is marine grade plywood as opposed to plain old lauan? It seems
: like many of you have used the cheap stuff with good results. Opinions?
: Thanks.

I am currently using luan on a S&G Guillemot. I did not notice there was a little voil near the end of the deck panel. When I force the tip to match with the hull, a 14" section crumbled. I also make one fatal mistake when stiching the deck on: I started drilling in the middle before the ends were secured. I proceed half way to each end before calling a quit. It was getting too late and I do not have any light outside. Before I stopped, I mixed up some epoxy and glue the deck on. The next morning, I found out that the deck was not matched up to the hull entirely. The stern was 6" to the right of the hull. The bow was off to the left by 2. I tried to force the ends back, it was then the bow broke. So I sawwed off both ends and resitched them on. The boat took on a little zig zag look in the process. Would I do that with the expensive marine ply? No way! I want something cheap and something fast -- I do care much how it looks now. Well the next boat will be different. This one is just an experiment.