Thanks all for your nice comments. Steve and Ben (I really did have my deck started before seeing photos of Ben’s Guillemot. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!) asked for more details about the decorative design, so I’ll try to answer them together here.

Woods used are Western Red Cedar, SPF(spruce, pine, fir), and Peruvian Walnut. Decorative ideas inspired by One Ocean Kayak (Vaclav Stejskal), Ross Leidy’s Guillemot, Ed Walshe’s Guillemot, and Nick Schade’s book (my “bible”).

The center area around the cockpit was stripped first in SPF, not sure what the wood is, most likely pine. I cut it to shape after stripping using a pull saw. The diagonal feature strip of SPF and Peruvian Walnut was next. First I laid a 1/4 by 1/4" strip of Walnut along the pine. I glued 36" long 1/4 by 1/2" pine strips to 1/4 by 1/4" walnut strips together side by side until I had a "plank" about 9" by 36". The plank was cut into 1/2" wide strips at a 45 degree angle on a table saw. This gave me 1/2" wide diagonal strips about a foot long to join end to end. Some broke, but I had plenty, so it worked out fine. Then I laid another a 1/4 by 1/4" strip of Walnut along the outside. The rest of the boat is WR cedar, except for narrow SPF strips along the shear and the stems.

Ben, I also have second thoughts about decorative stripping. Some of the pictures posted lately have subtle design work that I find very appealing.