You know, greenland kayaks arn't supposed to be all that relaxing. One adjective commonly used to describe their handling characteristics is "crank". I enjoyed reading everyone's views of stability in this thread but I also think that some of these native craft require extreme skill from the users. Remember that these kayaks are peoples livlihoods where they come from and people begin training at very young ages and spend liftimes perfecting skills. We may be expecting the wrong things from our kayaks. Any changes in some areas of design might hampen the ability of the kayak to roll or perform scores specialized greenland menouvers. This opinion comes from the construction of three greenland kayaks that were almost complete flops because I couldn't help making the vain mistake of tinkering with designs. One of these kayaks I kept tearing open and changing the structure and then sewing back up. A sort of mad scientist "surgery". Although I feel that some of the fun of skin boats is that it is easy to tinker with designs my advice to you is that you use your kayak in nice weather and water and have fun with the livley feel of your greenland craft as it is and get better at handling it before you go about making changes that could jeoperdise that unique lively greenlandic kayak feel. If there are others who regularly use these boats who think I may be off my rocker let me know as I am interested in the opinions of people who regularly use these "crank" craft. BTW, your kayak is beatiful!

: After re-reading your stability article, I came to the same conclusion. The
: volume above the static waterline is important to stability and this boat
: doesn't have any, at least not aft. Fortunately, it looks like increasing
: the area below the waterline should be beneficial and I can do that (to
: some degree) without compromising the low deck I like so much.

: This has been a very educational experience, to say the least. Thanks for
: providing me with ideas and concepts to ponder.