I got a tern 14 kit in December and have been paddling it since May (and boy am I tired!) It is definetly a great boat, but I have come to desire a longer kayak for several reasons: I test paddled Nick's S&G Heron (18ft) at MATB03 and hope to build one this winter, in the steep closely spaced confused waves in the Norwalk Islands (Long Island Sound) the bows are often going under and it is a constant battle to maintain coarse on quartering waves, and, I like to paddle hard, close to hull speed so I might as well be making knots instead of heat. When you stop paddling the Tern slows down dramatically (no glide).

My tern kit came with silver wire, probly 22 gage thick. I would not use that type of wire again; you need to be able to release and re-adjust panels from time to time and this thin wire would always break if re-twisted. I will buy 18 gage copper wire or check out duck tape for future projects. I would not use wire-ties unless you are so familiar with the building process you don't need to re-adjust, plus they require a 1/8" inch hole instead of a 1/16" hole.

The reasons that I chose the Tern 14 was: Easier to build a shorter boat in my basement, and Pygmy claimed excellent maneuverabilty, though if they tried Nick's boats they would have to re-adjust this claim.

: I'm looking at building my first kayak and I'm glad to find this site. Any
: advice you've got, I'm happy to take.

: Two questions: I had just about settled on a Pygmy kit (the Osprey Standard;
: I'm drawn to the kits because I have no confidence in my ability to build
: straight from plans the first time out) when I had a conversation last
: night with a friend who built two kayaks from Glen-L plans. His Glen-Ls
: are 17 feet, and his first comment to me was that the shorter boat would
: be better for the kind of use he's gotten and I'm anticipating (Northern
: California/SF Bay and surrounding day trips; I'd describe myself as
: comfortable in a boat, advanced beginner wise). That I didn't need as much
: boat as he had and as I might be building. The Osprey's 15'8"...and
: now I'm wondering again about the Arctic Tern, which is even shorter at
: 14. So this is a length question and a hard v. multi chine question: does
: anyone have any specific insight in the tradeoffs between these?

: Second question: why use copper wire or zip ties? Copper's provided in the
: kit, and seems like it's fine to work with...but I've been zip ties touted
: far and wide on the web. Any odd pitfalls in copper?

: Thanks.