: I've enjoyed building wooden boats for the past few years a a hobbie. I'm now
: relocated to New Mexico from Hawaii and am cosidering building a river
: Kayak from plywood over sawn frames. I'm looking to build a tandem about
: 15 ft long by 27" wide with an open area in the middle about 27 x 60
: with the for and aft decked. My question is if I cover the bottom 1/3 lets
: say about 3 inches above the waterline with a 9 oz kevlar mat and epoxy,
: is that going to be too fragile for class 2 rapids? What's my limitations
: with a boat built like this. Please email me 'cause I don't know if I'll
: be able to navigate back to this post for an answer.
: Thanks so much,

: Travis Duggan
: Placitas, NM

: p.s. the general idea of the plans are at this link

This boat is frighteningly similar in construction to a Popular Mechanics design, of which I built two examples, in the 1960's. It is a flatwater boat, suitable for the purposes of fishing or hunting on small lakes and slow rivers. It will not be suitable for any kind of rapids, whatever you do with it. It will weigh a ton! The ones I built were 11' x 32", weighed 70lb., and were so stable you could stand on one side of the cockpit without flipping the boat. One ended up being used as a cottage toy by a friend of mine. He sent me a photograph of the boat with six kids sitting on it. It tracked like an arrow, though.

Fortunately, boat design has moved along since these plans were drawn up, possibly as early as the 1950's. (The ones I built were in a 1950 book, extolling the virtues of plywood, which was a new product at the time.) If you want a boat that is a stable platform for firing a shotgun, this is your boat. If you want to do rapids, I would suggest you investigate the lighter, handier stitch-and=glue models, and people here can give much better advice than I on what models might be suitable for this purpose.

Best wishes with this project.

Roger