Some aspects of this design definitely look better. However, I'm pretty much certain it will weathercock really badly: even ignoring the paddler who is aft of the centre of lateral resistance, the kayak itself would weathercock since the sheer is generally higher after than forwards. There's plenty of info in fairly recent mails about how to check for this - do a search.

I can't easily tell from the plans where the flat bottom stops: does it run all the way to the end of the chines at bow and stern, or stop before them?

To try to put some figures on stability, I'm 6'1" and 165 lbs - so reasonably tall and well proportioned ie I don't have a fat butt! The one kayak I've built from my own design so far had a transverse metacentric height calculated by Freeship of 0.9ft. I have a thin seat - no more than 1/4". That combination feels happily stable to me: stable at rest, but still easy to tip when I want to. (Metacentric height is a good indicator of initial stability - if the CofG of the craft and all contents, including you, is above that height it will try to tip over if you sit totally still, if below that it will be stable.) I haven't seen definite figures for many other designs, but I'd suggest if that figure is below 0.8 then you'll probably feel unstable. (Anyone else got any data to add here?)

I'm not a good enough designer to really comment on whether this design will track well or not, but personally I'd have slight concerns. My gut feel is that there's a good chance it will not track well and will need regular correction strokes. This is a fairly wild guess, based on the forefoot looking a little lower in the water than the 'sternfoot'. This may not be an issue for you of course, it all depends on how you want it to handle.

Dave.