Yo Erin
Pete Oliver built a baidarka in New Zealand using willow ribs. Pete harvested his willow and put the rib stock in his freezer until he was ready to use them. Seemed to have worked.

My recovery is just short of 10 ft long and 22" wide. Stability wise, my recovery is 'a bit tweaky' , but I can cope with it . I loaned it to a novice kid for a kids race and they were wobbling a bit (I was nervous just watching ) but they survived - hopefully the experience didn't put the kid off kayaking for ever.

At the end of the day, 22" is the width of a kayak polo boat and I was unable to get the bottom of my hull anywhere near as flat as a polo boat.

To get a feel for what your boat might be like, try out a pool polo boat if you can and imagine a bit less stable. If you can be happy with that, go with your gut feelings.

I would go for wider if I were to make another recovery, to build in a bit more stability and thus make it a bit more user friendly.

Making the recovery wider should help the kayak edge better into the face of a wave when you are surfing.

Also, because I weigh 100 kg, I figure the extra width will give me extra buoyancy and help prevent my recovery sinking by the stern every time I try to get into or out of it.

Having said that, my skinny recovery paddles pretty fast for its size and punching out through waves is not a problem. With the speed, I also seem to be able to catch waves a little better too - sometimes I can catch waves that shorter stubbier play boats can't.

So, despite my misgivings of having a skinny 22" wide recovery ... it still goes pretty well.

But I think I would still advise pushing things out to 24" or even more if you and the wood can handle it.

Good luck with the build

Pete