Derick Hutchinson once had his students stand on their boats during an assisted rescue technique to show what a stable platform it provided. My Pygmy had no significant trouble, while much to his horror, the fiberglass deck of one of the other students cracked underneath him.

Some of the other members can quote you about modulus of elasticity, yada, yada, yada. I would simply say that a well-designed and built wood/fiberglass boat will be as good or better in every significant area of comparison to a pure fiberglass boat.

The exception to that statement would be specialized boats. My Patuxent is too lightly designed for general abuse. It has a light weight weave on the hull and no fiberglass on the deck whatsoever. At 35 lbs. it's a great racing boat, but the hull has been punctured on a mild rocky beach landing, and the deck would probably not be able to make it through a paddle-float rescue.

: I built a CLC Chessy 17 and am in the process of building a stripper now. I
: absolutely love the Chessy and have had NO problems at all handling the
: boat in adverse conditions loaded for camping. Whether the waves are
: hitting me straight, astern, quartering into or away from this boat takes
: it easily. I'm not just talking 15 knot winds with small waves, I'm
: talking 25 knot winds, 3-4 foot breaking chop on top of 5 foot swells
: rolling through at the same time. Anyway, I was on a trip recently when
: someone asked me why I would want a wooden kayak because they are not as
: resistant to rock damage as $2500 fiberglass kayaks. My boat handled as
: well as (even better than) the other 4 glass boats in the group. I
: explained how it has already proven how well it handles (which is a great
: reason to have one), but could not really dispell his fears of punching a
: hole in the hull during an accidental dumping of the kayak on a ledge.

: Anyone here have and experiences with glass boats being holed? How about S&G
: or strippers? I did an expedition layup (two layers on the bottom outside
: and one layer on the inside) on the hull and KNOW it can take some
: pounding on rocks. To me, I would rather have a boat that handled superbly
: so I could AVOID the nasty rock dumpings than have a boat I couldn't count
: on but might survive a sharp rock.