: ...my watch and knife collections and an old set of doors and fenders for a
: '58 GMC pickup for your Cormorant hybrid and one of your Greenland paddles
:

Sorry, I'm a Ford guy...tell me about the watches and knives!

: Actually, how do you like the Chesapeake key-hole coaming, compared to the
: others you've seen.

In your spirit of full honesty, I don't like it.

It still has an upward slope under the coaming that is hard to grab with your knees unless you add a bunch of foam there.

Recessed coamings look cool, but I like them for much more than that. First, they're easier to outfit for good boat control. (flat or negative slope toward the center of the boat)..they often form a ready "knee hook" Second, they lower the coaming so that rolls are easier. A tall deck makes rolling tougher. An even taller coaming makes it truly difficult.

You could still go with a stacked ply coaming, but put it on a recess.

: The constuction method is simple, stacking several
: layers of ply, with a wider lip on top. And I am considering doing it
: again on the One Ocean Cirrus. I have no problem getting in/out at launch
: or during a wet-exit, but have yet to learn how to roll.

In plan, the shape isn't bad...I just don't like its contours or profile.

Stacked ply is heavier than necessary, too. I'm more of a fan of veneer or vertical strip coaming risers with veneer or thin strip coaming lips, covered in glass. With plywood, you end up with a physically wider coaming riser and lip, because you're forced to trust the glue joints of the plywood to hold the whole thing together. You get less inside-coaming space for the same exterior coaming silhouette. With a glassed coaming, thinner and skinnier parts are possible.

My Guillemot and Cormorant got coamings the same overall size for skirt compatibility, but their profile shapes are much different.

: On my Chesapeake,
: I added 1/2" white minicel foam under the deck for comfort and
: support and couldn't be happier with the outcome. But have absolutely
: nothing to compare it to. I own a CLC sprayskirt and hope that I don't
: need to buy another skirt. Any thoughts?

If you build a different style of coaming to fit the CLC sprayskirt, you'll have even more entry and exit room interior to the coaming.

Shawn

Just my feeble $0.02. Like I mentioned in my reply to your post about strip designs in Rick Sylvia's thread, take it or leave it, I don't mind. This is just one man's opinion, and is only truly valuable to me. I don't mind offering my opinion with the knowledge that none of it may be useful to you, but I do feel obligated to answer a question with a considered answer. You declined to give Rick strip design answers, which you're free to do also, but I want to disclose my own opinions if for no other reason than you may decide it's the best way "not" to do something! At any rate, the more answers posted, the more the original poster can have his or her own creative juices stimulated!

I posted a similar query 3 years ago:
http://www.kayakforum.com/cgi-bin/Building/Archive20.pl/read/23255

I sort of turned my design decision over "to committee", and the comments I received were valuable enough that they even changed my mind. S