: I am looking at building a kayak and have narrowed to these. How do they
: compare, in the opinion of somebody who doesn't work for Guillemot or
: Pygmy? Am I missing good options? I have no woodworking experience, so I
: am only looking at kits.

If I am not mistaken the pygmy boats are stich and glue designs and the guillmots are strip built. There is a pretty big difference in the labor involved between the the two different methods. S&G about 40-80 hrs. The strip built about 400 hrs. Both methods are fun and building a stripper doesn't take an great knowledge of woodworking to make a beautiful boat.

my suggestions are to buy nick's book because it outlines all of the steps in strip building and also buy chris kulczycki's book The Kayak Shop. Each will give you an in depth look at both methods and then decide on which you would rather build.

There are plenty of S&G kits out there as well as strip kits. It also isn't very hard to build a S&G from plans and it will save you some money. Check the web for other designs there are plenty out there. CLC, redfish, shearwater, etc.

Tom