:. . . I want to build
: a kayak that I can paddle solo and have room for my 50# dog. I want
: something that I can take on lakes, big rivers (no whitewater), and
: shallow creeks. Anything less than a 30" beam makes me nervous with
: the dog and I'd like to stay away from the longer models to facilitate
: creek travel. It also needs to have at least a 300# capacity.

A couple of things come to mind which make me suggest that you may want to give a bit more thought to your specifications.

1.) Depending on how much your dog moves around, you may have much better control with a NARROWER kayak than with a wide one. Here is how it works: First, I'm assuming you weigh more than the dog. Consider a 20 inch wide boat and a 30 inch wide boat. in each case the maximum distance from the center line is half the beam, so for that 30 inch boat the side of the boat is 15 inches from center, and for the 20 inch boat the side is 10 inches from the center line. You will of course be sitting on the centerline, balancing the boat as you paddle. The dog will have no such understanding and will be moving from side to side as the wind shifts and fresh scents, or some other whimsy attract it. The further the dog moves away from the center line the more its weight will affect your balance. It is a matter of leverage. If you give it the opportunity to get 15 inches away from the center line you will have to work against a lot more of that leverage than if the dog is limited (by being in a narrower craft) to having only 10 inches of leverage. If your dog was 50 pounds, and you weighed 150, then for every 3 inches your dog went to the right you would have to shift an inch to your left to keep things in balance. With a boat with a 30 inch beam, if you sat upright you would be sliding your body over a 10 inch wide path just to keep things balanced. Actually, you would probably lean your upper body some, and shift your butt as needed. With a 20 inch wide boat you dog could go at most 10 inches to a side, and you would only need to move a bit more that 3 inches to either side. You could probably lean this much and not need to actually slide your butt in your seat. Leaning would be a faster and more intuitive movement, too. With a narrower boat you could more easily pad it so that it fits you like you are wearing it, not just sitting in it. That would allow your body's sense of balance to respond to the dog's actions in a more direct and natural way. (disclaimer: take these numbers as representative samples. To calculate the actual math you would need to figure things from the center of mass and know the height of the masses involved, and the actual changes in displacement as the geometry of the hull changed as the boat rocked. A 20 inch wide kayak might be an extreme example, but I hope you can work backward from this and get a feeling for how a 23 to 26 inch wide boat would work.)

To put it another way, putting the dog in a narrow cockpit forces it to stay close to the center line of the boat and reduces the tendency to tip. A narrow boat allows you to influence the balance more by leaning than you could do in a wider boat where you would also need to slide your weight along a bench seat.

In order now to keep the displacement up, you need to make the boat longer. Any creek you can navigate in a 17 foot canoe you can navigate in a 17 foot kayak. My problem with small creeks is that they tend to also be shallow, and I'm always scraping the bottom. To keep the boat floating higher I want the weight spread over either a longer length or a wider width, or both. If I am paddling upstream, or upwind I want a narrower boat, for less resistance. That means I need a longer one, to give me enough displacement so I float higher. In general, the longer, slimmer models have very good tracking, so paddling in a lake you will go straight without needing to add a keel (which would possibly be a problem in small creeks.) With a longer kayak you can make a long narrow cockpit for the dog to move around in, instead of a short wide cockpit. The narrow cockpit keeps the dog closer to the center, and the length gives it some freedom to move and turn around.

I don't know how frisky your dog is, but I know that the inventors of the kayak built narrow ones, and if their sled dogs were as frisky as my siberian husky they had a handful whenever they had to transport a dog across water.

a dog in a kayak is a different proposition tan a dog in a canoe. The big difference is the geometry of the deck on the kayak. With a canoe the widest part of the boat frequently is at the lowest point of the gunwale. As a canoe tips it takes on water at the middle of the boat long before either end does. Imagine a kayak with narrow cockpits, though. On many, the center of the boat rises like a chimney, preventing water from entering even if the boat is tipped extremely far. If the boat was 25 inches wide and the opening of the cockpit was 19 inches, then even if the boat was completely on its side (90 degrees on edge) the boat would have to sink 3 inches into the water before any came in through the cockpit opening. With a tight spray skirt the boat could float on its side and stay pretty dry for quite a while. The paddler would be immersed in the water at such an angle, of course, but I'm giving a ridiculously extreme example jsut so you can picture it in your mind. No one plans to tip that far unless they are practicing rolling the kayak. But, a long and narrow kayak CAN tip quite a bit further than a canoe, and not capsize.

: complete novice when it comes to woodworking. Any suggestions for good
: model plans or kits-including any modifications that enhance the qualities
: I'm looking for? Maybe something along the lines of CLC's Mill Creek 15
: with a wider beam? Thanks!

for a woodworking novice i suggest that if you have the money get a kit. In general, with a kit you will need fewer tools. There willl be fewer woodworking skills needed. You won't go nuts trying to find items in unfamiliar lumberyards or hardware stores. If the budget is tight then you should consider investing more time, rather than money, and learn a few new skills and do more of the work yourself.

If my suggestions on looking at a narrower design have influenced you then I am sorry, for it gives you more, instead of less choices -- and at this point you probably want to narrow the field instead.

Big thing to consider. TRY OUT THE DESIGN before you buy a kit. Even if you have to load the dog in acar and drive a few hundred miles, find an already built boat of the design you are considering and test paddle it.

Give us some idea of what part of the world you live in and I think someone on this board might be able to suggest nearby builders with the boats you are considering. Put booties on the dog to protect the boats' finish, and try out a few. It would probably be a nice gesture to buy your host a lunch, too. lets say you try out three boats near you. If your trials lead you to consider building one particular model, you will still have met three active builders who can offer advice at a later stage if you get hung up on something.

Best of luck with your project.

Paul G. Jacobson