: Wow, what a pond! I see you have done a lot of research on that.

Thanks Tony, I love water as we all do here. I think I was a fish in another life. I wish I lived in the S.F Bay area with all of the nice weather and sea kayaking.

: About your boat design, why do you choose a round bottom? In flat water
: water, flat bottom gives you more primary stability without worrying about
: the trade off of secondary. If you need to reach outside the boat to grab
: some weed in the water, primary stability is what you need. On second
: thought, a small canoe will fit your purpose much better because you can
: bring stuff back and a canoe is a lot easier to hose down. Right?

I used the free software BEARBOAT kayak download to design my kayak, and I really like it. I couldn't flatten the bottom anymore without running into design parameters that wouldn't allow it to be flattened more then I did. I think I was using the program right. As for using a canoe, I use to have a 17 footer and it was ok except in high winds on lakes, then it became a sail boat because of its higher profile. But this 11 ft. kayak will be easy to handle and car top. But the main reason is I want to build a strip built boat. They are beautiful and this kind of boat building is new to me. And I think I have enough bit and pieces of wood setting around to advance to the stripping stage without costing me a dime, and that is a fun challange too.

Take care,
John