: I really like your designs. Could you compare the use of wood vs. aluminum? I
: am thinking about building a SOF version of my Sea Spirit design. Would it
: be possible to substitute wood for aluminum?

***

Bobby,

Wood folders have a better look when stripped of their skin (allowing their hanging from a living-room ceiling under the supervision of an extremely democratic SWMBO, or skinning with a translucent or clear canvas) a bit more flexibility, and allow a closer match of arctic designs than you can get from alu tubing, as it's tough to make a sweptup bow (or stern) without deep gunwales and additional stanchions, and curbing the fore deckridge from top of the coaming or masik, down to fore deck level then up to the top of the bow stem piece! Ash tree's amazing bendability lets us do that.
Tom is a mastermind, but he builds Aleut-type iqyaxes (which the Russian imperialists unappropriately called baidarkas ;-} meaning small barks) that are generally flush-decked.
On the other hand, alu tubes are lighter to portage, don't have to be varnished and can be assembled quite nicely through inner tubes.
They get a moderate degree of flex that seems to make them better sailers on inner waters than on the Ocean.
One other difference lies in the connection fittings: fitting round tubes to the ply stations (or alu thwarts as on Feathercrafts and Nautiraids) doesn't call for the same solutions than fitting square-sectioned stringers to stations.

Eric