I read with some amusement the following from GR's website:

>If you are looking for "professional" confirmation of your opinions, you can >find it. There are a lot of "professional" builders who choose to build poor >quality boats. They will help you build poor quality boats. Will the boats be >suitable for your purposes? I have no idea. I only know they are not suitable >for my wife's use. (I value her more than I value me.)
>During the 60's and 70's many "professionals" built wood core fiberglass >boats. Those boats are now mostly rotting. Why? Because the builders used good >materials which they adulterated for ease of application. Those builders and >those they taught are still around.
>The materials have changed since the 60's and 70's but the >current "professionals" still choose to adulterate their materials and build >poor quality boats - the big difference is they now choose to start with poor >materials.
>60's and 70's "professionals", current "professionals", and those they have >taught have written books. Those books will tell you how to build poor quality >boats. How? They will instruct you to use poor materials, adulterate the >materials to ease application, and to use poor technique in application. They >will do that without informing you of the risks and tradeoffs. Following their >instructions you will build poor quality boats. Will the boats be suitable for >your purposes? Again, I have no idea.
>I have been rather abusive here. I am that way because ... If you are looking >for help, there is no easy way for you to distinguish between good help and >poor help.

Then we find out that:

: "After a proper period of curing I put the boat in the water and paddled
: to Mackinaw Island from the mainland. Landing in 6" chop on a shore
: comprised of sand with a few 6" diameter rocks put a hole in the hull
: - a 12" tear through the cloth and along the strips in the
: hull."

This is the only story I have heard about a catastrophic failure of a strip-built kayak. And this from a 5'3" paddler in an engineering masterpiece during near-calm conditions. George, you are a self-aggrandizing gasbag.