:(My wife and I have found that 3 boys
: ages 7,4 and 2 on a 30' houseboat is a little snug!!)

: I'd like to find a design in the 10'- 14' range that one or two of the boys
: could use/paddle at a time.

Lance,

Why not look at a small rowboat or open sailboat? Something with a reasonably flat bottom and straight sides. Glen-L and Clark Craft have lots of designs for these. Anything over 10 feet could hold you and all the kids now, and in 3 years the 10, 7 and 5 year olds will enjoy rowing it without you. These are typicaly wide and hard to tip over. You can get oarlocks tha hold the oars to the bot, too, so your kids don't just splash and beat each other over the head with paddles.

Plywood construction makes these fast and cheap to build. Some are stitch and glue and others are built over temporary forms.

You can use such a boat as a tender for your houseboat, too. No need to bring it on deck if you just tow it behind. An electric trolling motor provides plenty of power (about 1/2 to 1 horsepower) to move these small boats, and you can easily rig cables from your houseboat's generator to recharge the battery, without removing it from the rowboat.

Probably not the suggestion you were looking for, but I think a 2 and 4 year old are a bit too young to handle a kayak by themselves, even with the aid of a 7 year old, so I'd go for something with more stability now and wait a few years for the sportier boats.

When the kids are a bit bigger, though, I have some old plans for a kids kayak made from 1/4 inch plywood,on a frame of ribs and chines. it is about 11 feet long, and about 28 inches wide. I will be happy to e-mail these to you. E-mail me if you are interested.

Paul G. Jacobson Pjacobson@aol.com