> I'm looking for a S&G kayak design that would be suitable for an entry
> level girl that weighs about 90 lbs...My daughter is caught up in the idea
> after attending a small boat symposium in Saginaw, MI..... She's a good
> canoer, but I'm not sure about the launch and paddling. No problem with
> the swimming....a fish in the water, so with PFD should should be okay. I
> want to build the boat with her help. She helped with the last project and
> she like the idea. Any paddlers built a kayak for kids.....Also, what
> design could she grow into?

Any boat you build is going to be around a lot longer than that 90 pound figure. She will grow. If you look at boats for paddlers in the 120 pound class you'll have a lot of designs.

I'd worry more about the weight of the boat than the length, although the two figures go hand-in-hand. Any boat that weighs 40 pounds or less should be manageable. (For a year or two she may need help loading and launching, but that is how dads earn brownie points.) My kids (85 and 98 pounds respectively) take a 40 pound canoe to the river (1/4 mile) and launch it by themselves. The secret is the wheeled dolly I made for it. They can roll it with little effort. I strongly suggest a dolly. It works fine for lazy big kids like me, too.

Are you locked into stitch and glue? Skin on frame is fast and inexpensive, and the boats are light. The parts are small and your daughter can easily help glue and screw the frame parts. Clark Craft has a variety of kayak plans in their catalog, with many in this size being fabric over frame. Regretably the catalog is $5., and the kayak plans only take up 2 or 3 pages. (www.clarkcraft.com, to order it) I suppose you could always call them up and ask if they could cut you a deal on just mailing photocopies of the kayak pages. Their part catalog is free. Ask for that when you call.

If your daughter likes canoes, why not build her one? In my copy of the Clark Craft parts catalog (the freebie one) they had descriptions and pictures for a few canoes, including a darling one called `the Wee Lassie' It is about 10.5 to 11.5 feet long and abotu 24 inches wide as I recall. It's built as a stripper, and weighs in around 25 pounds. Typically this is paddled with a double bladed paddle, and the paddler sits on a low seat (kayak style). Glen-L has some stitch and glue designs in their catalog. They have one called a Can-Yak. It looked to me more like a decked canoe than a kayak. The listed weight seems a bit high, though. You can see their plans online at their website: (www.glen-l.com)

Nick has pictures of his Little Auk on this website (hit the homepage and navigate from there to find the description). At 25 pounds it should be light enough for easy handling.

Chesapeake Light Craft (CLC) has several stitch and glue boats that might be of interest. In Chris Kulczycki's book he profiles three that CLC has plans for in their `archives' area. The Severn and the Yare are certainly the right size. From the description and photos in Chris's book they seem to be fast and easy to assemble, too. You can get plenty of comments on those characteristics from this board! (www.clcboats.com)

Hope this gives you something to chew on, umm, research, for a while. Paul Jacobson