I don't know why the two main manufacturers (clc & pygmy) don't recess their cockpits this way. It is such and aesthetic improvement. I thin one of sqeedunk's yaks has a radical recess.

conjecture here only. (But having bent a fw pcs of 1/8in ply for other stupid projects,) would it not be simpler doing the upstand by bending? If the dip was say 2in and the coaming ht was 1in, wouldn't it be simple to take a 4in (1/2in of slop ea side) wide strip of ply, steam or wet it a bit, bend in place, few tabs cutouts for the thigh braces, glue w/ 1/2 sticking below the base, setup and use a laminate trimmer or plane to get the bottom flush, and run a pencil line over a scrap of 1in card all around and trim to that line? Mush a wide blank for the coaming lip on top, and run the laminate trimmer around that, and maybe the router set up for a 1 in+ lip using the i/s as the guide? The idea is to do all of the fine work when in place and use the base for a guide and then the i/s of the upstand for a guide for the router, laminate trimmer or I would prob just use the small plane and afew different sanding blocks.

-maybe

-mick