: Does anybody have any ideas on designing a deck for a stich and glue kayak
: that can accomodate me and my 80lb dog. Im trying to stay away from a 20
: ft double and simply redisign something that already exists.

I have a dog and go on short short short jaunts with him on top of my yak. He weighs less than 50# and altho one of my yaks is fairly flat topped, with that wt that high, and with his unpredicable movements, it's annoying. One of my yaks has a 34in or so long cockpit and I have sorta jammed him down betw my legs or on top of a loose spray skirt. This is slightly better mainly b/c his wt is lower, but real possibilites of trapping his head or banging it while paddling.

So, if I was to modify my yak for a dog, I'd want him low, close to me, and out of the way of my paddle. I think the best thing to do is to make a hatch like opening right behind the cockpit for the dog, bulkheaded at both front and back, with the real hatch just behind that and separated. And conceptually I'd be thinking of a sitontop like approach for this area, like make a bathtub(I don't mean a literal bathtub but that idea or plastic kennel bottom idea is the notion) of glass and drop it in the doghatch and screw the lip all around a typical dropped kayak flange. Scuppers maybe, but I'm not totally convinced - but one time in big conditions might convince me that its a good idea. If you downset the flange and lip, you could just put a flush hatch on top converting it to a normal yak w/ 2 hatches instead of one and keeping the flush lines. Or just unscrew the 'dogtub' and attach a hatch cover.

So anyway, you keep the dog low, close, out of the paddle way, get a fair bit of floatation and also hatch space. And equally important, when not in use, just looks like any regular yak.

-mick