: I have seen many homebuilts in which the owner rattled around in them and
: required thick hip pads to cope, or the rear coaming was so high to make
: rolling difficult. Unless of course, you prefer beamy, high volume kayaks,
: if you are going to build, why not build a kayak that fits you, rather
: than making adustments so that you fit it?

I can't argue with that. Pick a boat that fits you. If you go down the beach trying all the boats and find that the boats you like have a length of 4 of your arm spans, then the correct length formula for you is probably around 4 arm spans. But just because someone else likes 4 arm spans does not mean you will also.

I am sure that the traditional builders were not slaves to the formulas. If a hunter found is 4 arm span kayak seemed to short, he would happily build his next one longer. It is useful to have guide lines based on the experience of other builders, but they should be treated as guidelines, not laws.

Building your own boat gives you a lot of leeway to customize it's size to fit your needs and people wanting the "perfect" boat should take advantage of the ability. The first step is to try lots and lots of boats. Then build lots and lots of boats. This will give you the knowledge to create your own formula. Don't expect to find a pre-existing formula that will work for everyone. If you are lucky you will find an existing formula that agrees with yours. And you will probably want to tweek it on your next boat.