: After reading about Kyle T's 3mm hull on his tandems,

: Anyone have a good reason that this is a bad idea? The lighter weight is a
: big plus for me.

Those boats were specifically made as absolutely light as possible for Adventure Racing. During those multi-day events the race director almost always throws in at least a mile or so of portage. You should try that after just finishing a 50-mile mountain bike ride :-(. Our team was the only team that hoped for even longer carries. That’s because our boats weighed just over half of what a store bought tandem weighs and that advantage always helped us put distance on the competition. The yaks were fast too.

While those two tandems don’t get much use they have never given us any problems and I’m sure we have run into just as many hidden snags as the next boat. I’m confident enough in the 3mm ply that I’m currently making a Night Heron hybrid for myself using a 3mm hull. It’s insanely lightweight. The deck is ¾ finished. I had to move it out of the garage to sweep and even with the forms in place it is way lighter than most singles. I can’t wait to get this one in the water.

The 3mm is a little more difficult to work with because it is much more flexible than the 4mm until the seams are glasses. This caused me to place stitches closer together on the seams and I had to use the hybrid forms to hold the correct shape of the sides of the hull. No real issues building just a little extra thought.

Hope this helps,
Kyle T.