: Tom,

: Thanks for the info. I have two follow-up questions: 1. Since I am scaling
: down by 15%, do you still think that the deck will be too high? How much
: will the recess reduce the hieght? As I am only 5'6", and I will be
: taking my kids out, I am concerned about the deck being too high.

The larger you make the recess, the greater the drop will be. I'm not sure how much it will drop it, but besides that, it looks good and is easy to do. I wish I would have done that on my double. Maybe some day I will and at the same time narrow down the cockpit to about 16". Then maybe build in some side storage units. The height of the front deck is greater than the rear, and most likely the kids will be up front, so I highly recomend it. I'm 6'2" and I don't care for the deck height and end up clanking the paddle shaft on the deck. I think I would start by looking at the recess being about 3" wider and maybe 6" to 8" longer than the offsets for the standard cutout. If you've drawn out the standard cockpit for the double, just eyeball a fair shape larger than that. If you don't make it larger you won't reduce the depth and instead you will be increasing it by simply making a cockpit smaller without a recess.

: 2. When I scaled down the double cockpit by 15%, it became shorter and about
: the same width as the single (28"x17" roughly). Will the
: standard size skirt fit this?

Couldn't tell you for sure, but it should. Best bet is to bring the kayak to the store and try them on, or else make sure you can exchange it if it doesn't fit quite as expected. I purchased mine through Spring Creek. They are only about 25 miles from me and very helpful. They list sizes (LxW) for spray skirts so you can get a good idea of what should fit.

Hope this helped

Tom