Ken,

Sorry I didn't respond sooner. The Walrus is reasonably stable for a single sea kayak. Stability goes way up as the floor goes down on the Walrus. I built a plywood version that is 22" wide, but the floor IS the bottom of the kayak. That one is so stable that I can stand up in it. I have tried to lower the floor on all of my Skin Walrus's (Walrii???), I am working on my fourth kayak based on this design. To lower the floor cut the top of the floor beam to match the angle of the hull at that deck beam. I found that as I lower the floor (seat area), the floor gets weaker and is prone to damage. Be sure to reinforce it if you cut down into the floor beams. I did that and still had to do some repairs last week on a 2 year old kayak. I sistered the floor beams at the keel and also fiberglassed the beams where cracks were developing. This seems to have solved the problem, as it took the abuse of multiple launchings during R2K1 without any further damage.

Take a look at my site for some pictures of my floor beams.

Mike Hanks

: Thank you very much for the information and thanks to everyone else the
: responded. I spend last night dreaming or nightmaring about a similar
: solution but it woulds be more difficult. The first thing I am going to do
: is find someone to test my kayak and determine if its me or the kayak. If
: tis the kayak, I will experiment with the weight and the seat height.
: Unfortunately I made the cockpit wider them my bottom. I may put some
: temporary padding on the sides.

: I need to find a design for a very stable kayak I can make for my wife. I
: will get into that in another topic.