: At the cockpit the deck raises up a good bit higher compared to the rest of
: the deck. I am afraid that just doing a big radius there may look funny. I
: am wondering if it should be more elliptical maybe?

I made both fore and aft decks half-ellipse shapes. My foredeck is a
half-ellipse with a peak height above the sheer of 0.235 times the beam.
The aft deck is similar, with a height 0.175 times the beam. Building again,
I would probably make the aft deck a little lower (ie. flatter) but still a
half-ellipse shape.

Just putting a radius (ie. a cambered deck as you see on many S+G designs)
gives you a sharp corner at the sheer. Whilst this may be easier to build
(and very much so if you use a sheerclamp), having very sharp rails like
this can make the boat a lot easier to capsize, especially in surf. As the
sheer is submerged in a leaned turn, the rail can catch and flip the boat
unexpectedly quickly in moving water - the stability feels quite different
from applying the same amount of lean in still water. I used to paddle a
Perception Pirouette in white water, and the flat aft deck and sharp rails
caught me out repeatedly. The two W/W boats I've had since both have more
rounded sheers and are a lot more forgiving in respect of that particular
behaviour.

Having said all that, the sea boat I most prefer for paddling in rough water
is our old club Anas Acuta, which has just such a sharp transition to a flat
deck at the sheer. I think the extreme rocker and the hard hull chines make
it do what you want before the top rail catches, mostly. It has dumped me in
surf a couple of times quickly enough that I don't really know what happened,
so that might be the result of the sharp corner ...

Anyway, a bit of curve above the sheer will make the boat more forgiving
in moving water when the wave is above the sheer, and, to my mind, it looks
better too.

As to having water chucked in your face, a flat deck does that a lot if you
have something stuck on it (like a Valley hatch cover sticking up, or the edge
of its recess if you did that), but if the deck is clean, its not much of a
problem. A peaked deck (like the Great Auk) may shed water, but it's harder to
arrange effective knee bracing and your face gets a lot wetter when you
capsize :-) A rounded deck is an effective compromise - my cormorant has a
VCP hatch which chucks spray up, but mostly it sheds water away from the
front of the spray deck. The main cause of water being thrown in your face
is having a boat that slaps down as you crash through a wave. The spray this
makes is then blown right at you if you are heading within about 30° of the
wind. A low volume bow that penetrates the wave will give you less slap, but
more wash over the foredeck. For a low-volume bow, you would indeed benefit
from a peaked deck, but more especially from a clean foredeck. If you've
built your hull, then the wave penetration or buoyancy/slapping aspect of
the boat's performance is already decided !

Personally, I find that splashing through face-fulls of water makes for
exciting paddling (one gets face fulls of water all the time W/W paddling
through the winter), but it can get wearing if you are battling into steep
seas for prolonged periods (typically when you have planned to go with the
tide and find yourself heading straight into the wind ...)

Almost no deck shape is going to stop a face and chest full of water in an
exciting tide race, but half a second later, the boat slapped down into the
trough beyond this peak, and the huge slap threw another great load of spray
at me. With a low-volume bow, I might have avoided the slap, but I'm guessing
that the impact of penetrating this wave would have been a lot more
unpleasant. I don't think the deck shape would have made a lot of difference!
(apologies for quality of this shot, it's a frame from video - I'm not yet
good enough to take still photos in these conditions :-)

Andy