I built a stitch and glue Shearwater Merganser 16 (21" wide by 16-9ft long) two summers ago with my SO who is slightly taller but the same weight category as you. It fits her very nicely and could be just what you are looking for. As a kit, i think it runs about 700 or 800. you can also get a kit that has a strip built deck that runs closer to 1000 but gives you some of the beauty of a strip boat but with some of the faster building speed of the stitch and glue. Its a cool looking and very nice performing Greenlande style boat.

building directly from plans, with input from people here about material, can possibly save you some money but stretch out the building time since you need to find and source all teh materials. getting marine plywood is not always the easiest locally depending where you are. I usually try and buy wood in bulk from CLC to get the best deal but that means more than 1 boat worth of wood. Otherwise you pay a shipping premium and then the kits get closer in price.

as far as CLC, I built a Chessapeake 18 3 summers ago. Its a fine boat. as many do, i got a boat too big for me. a 17 or 18LT would have been more appropriate. i say that i might cut the top off mine and turn it more LT sized sometime. a chessapeake 14 would fit you nicely or a 16LT. A 17LT still fits me fine at 6-2 and 200 lbs so don't even consider going that big.

I'm building a strip built Redfish Return that is out of your size range, but all the Redfish boats are beautiful and the instructions are good too. The silver is not a bad size for you.

Both CLC, Shearwater, Pygmy, Shearwater, and Redfish all put together good instructions and have good internet customer support as well. Rob Macks does too with his line of boats.

Prime consideration is how much time you want to spend and also how many tools you have or are willing to buy/borrow. what ever style both you built, you will almost absolutely need a random robital sander (50 to 100 bucks). Unless you build a strip built from a kit, you will likely need jig saw, table saw, possibly router......

realistic timewise:
stitch and glue kit = 80 hours
stitch and glue from plans = 100 hours

strip built kit = 200 hours
strip built from plans 250 - 300 hours

for the strip built, these assume some degree of cuteness with using different woods etc. also, the above hours are actual building hours and don't include the obvious time spent watching the glue dry.

I finished my first S&G boat is about 3 months working wkends and during some wkend nights. some people who are retired can cram it into 3 or 4 weeks but then the time it takes glue to dry starts to impact how fast you can build.

I finished the above Merganser in about the same amount of time but putting some neater features into it and building it from plans and also having her help on it so I wasn't always doing all the work on it.

I've been working on my Redfish Return from plans since last NOv when I ripped the strips from boards and probably won't have it finished until this Nov. although I have been out of the country for 2 months this year unable to work on the boat so that makes it about 10 to 11 months of actual time.

Decide when you want to try and be finished by and that might dictate boat choice as well as cost. After you build the first one you may decide that building boats is fun and then start making another.

have fun and good luck.

plenty of good info on this boat. CLC has a forum too on their site when you can ask questions. Also, if you let folks know what area in the country you are, you might have offers from people to try out and look at various models. For example, I'm in eastern upstate NY. People are in the midwest, Northeast, west coast, etc and more than likely to live near you.

hope all this helps.

pete c
albany, NY
currently wolverhampton UK