Hi Paul
I've just finished building a double sea kayak (Tsunami) and though I may not answer your cockpit question this may be of interest to you, I steam bent the coaming by laminating about 5 steamed pieces of wood. The first three were the same height over an inch and the next two were not as wide to allow for a "skirt groove", like an upside down "L". The effect is great as one is able to get the wood to bend vertically and horizontally as required, with lots of clamps, every 3 inches or so! you'll need to experiment with the thickness of the strips as they'll vary according to your greatest bend.
Feel free to contact me
Regards
Graeme
: I'm making progress on my Hybrid Merganser 17W. The hull is built and
: glassed. The deck is stripped and glassed. Next step is to cut out and
: build the cockpit. I'ld like to make a recessed one. The kit (from
: Newfound Woodworks) came with a half template of the cockpit outline (a
: curve drawn on a piece of heavy paper). The deck itself has a large
: difference in deck height between the rear and front of the cockpit area
: (about 4-5 inches) with a strong curve to the deck in between. This leads
: to my two questions: 1) Any recommendations on how to transfer the curve
: from the template to the deck? It is difficult to simply lay the sheet out
: flat (or even close to flat). Should I cut out some of paper in the the
: area inside the curve?

: 2) What is a good way to increase the size of the opening I cut so that I can
: build the recessed deck? I'ld like to basically keep the shape of the
: template but enlarge it by about 2" all around.

: Any help would be appreciated.

: ---Paul Johnson

: PS: I have put a bunch of pictures of building my kayak on my web-site at
: work but have not yet really editied them. After doing so this week I'll
: let you all know the URL.