: It is interesting to note that just about all the reasons given for the
: choices made on the Greenland kayaks were shared by the Aleuts yet they
: came up with a substantially different solution to the same set of
: problems with the "baidarka"

I have been wondering about the same thing. Actually one person just asked me why the kayaks are so different in places where the use of kayaks is supposedly quite similar. Hard question to answer...

: The Aleuts and other groups along the shores of Alaska lived in an
: environment very similar to the Inuits and lived a lifestyle that was not
: radically different yet their boats are substantially different in form.

One big difference is the sea. Aleuts have quite much more open sea, whereas Greenlanders supposedly where hunting more in bays and fjords (just my impression). Thus more rockerless hull could be used in Aleut area. Also one thing is weight - a few aleut kayak I've seen reported are about twice heavier than usual Greenlandic kayaks.

: This highlights the idea that there are often multiple solutions to the same
: problem set.

I guess this is it. If you find a solution that works, you'll tune it and not change to something totally different.

I'll also respond something to the original post:
It depends on lot's of choices, but lets start in these criteria:
-A kayak for hunting in waves. Cargo can be transported in umiaks.
-Low volume (paddler's support to frame - ease of rolling) and low wind and deception area (let's not show the kayak to seals).

Let's say we design a kayak by this start point. Let's make it having little rocker, quite short to fit waves and having a vertical bow and stern. This kayak would be fine, but waves will roll over kayak.
So, we could increase the rocker and total volume so the kayak would go over waves and still have lowish volume. This would make the kayak quite slow s the underwaterbody should be wider.
Well, we could make the sides more raked in bow and stern thus getting the needed floatation to go over waves. It will work ok, but now the bow and stern would be blunt - resistance to hit waves and difficult to build.
So let's take the raked ends and give it overhangs so the sides will have nice continuation to ends. We have now typical Greenlandic kayak.

So I just assume that the design criteria and the way-it's-been-done is the main factor why the kayaks have ended the way they are currently.

It's true that you could snip the ends of most Greenland kayaks without changing the behaviour of volume of the kayak. But why would you do it? Just to make it shorter. But why? I'm assume Greenland people did not mind about the lenght. There's lots of space for kayaks - if it's 5.1m or 5.9m long it really does not matter. There is also the looks issue - I'm sure young man paddling in front of young women is more proud in pretty, sleek kayak than in bulb "ugly" kayak. Actually I when I kept my presentation about Greenland kayaks, some people called the very high sterned kayaks as bachelor's kayaks. I guess the high stern has some symbolism...

And of course there are Greenland kayak models that have higher volume or less overhangs...