: You'll save yourself the headache you anticipate if you glass the deck (and
: recess if you have one) first, then cut out the opening for the cockpit
: and build the vertical coaming. Fillet the joint between the coaming and
: the deck (using the recipe of your choice), and glass the coaming using
: bias cut strips, overlapping the deck by an inch or so. The joint will be
: quite strong.

: Ross

I've build one whole kayak, and did somthing very simillar to the method as described by Ross. It worked well for me.

My sequence ignoring most sanding and the like:

1) glassed only the outside of the deck with the recess.

2) Sand around the edge of the glassed recess now so fillet later will have a good mechanical bond

3) built the combing risers, as per Nicks book.

4) Fillet Glassed the Combing riser out side edge. My strips were not as biased as I'd liked, they were left overs... I used three pieces to make a single layer that went from the combing lip to about one inch past the outside edge of the recess.

5) While glassing the inside of the deck, I used two pieces which overlapped the entire cockpit area. I slit the insided of the cockpit, and folded the fiberglass over the in side of the combing risers. The Fiberglass will seperate at the point of the slit, however the fiberglass will not bend nicely without a slit up the side in places, I ensured these slits did not overlap, this prevents any area from having not glass. I found I needed more slits in the glass than expected to get it to transition over the insided of the combing riser. It may be worth while to not do this and used bias cut pieces of glass, which would require fewer cuts. (I think these slits in the glass are called darts).

6) I build up the combing lip using strips of ash, I was going to put fiberglass on these, but decided it was strong enough with 3 layers of epoxy on them.

I weigh 190 lbs, and sit on the lip to get in and out of the kayak It seems really strong. However it has not seen much use yet.

hope this helps

Myrl