: I think Shawn skipped the shaped gunwales. You might check with him on the
: results. It is a step straight from the Peterson books, if that makes any
: difference.

Perhaps a photo will help...

Shaping the gunwales (carving a curve in the upper edge) is discussed in Petersen's "Instruction in Kayak Building" and is commonly done in Greenland. Even ancient kayaks often show this feature. To see the effects of skipping this step, note the bottom kayak in the image below. It is my understanding that this young Greenlander (Jakob Peter Enoksen) did not shape the gunwales and the ends of his kayak are somewhat "humped" (do not follow a smooth curve) as a result. Image is from the Qajaq USA 2000 competition photo album at http://www.qajaqusa.org/gallery/albums.php.

I used a drawknife and spokeshave for this operation and was done within an hour.

Greg Stamer