I've clearly been badly bitten by the building bug. I built two S&Gs last year, build and tried out a SoF at Easter and have a canoe (Selway Fisher Prospector) on the go for my brother and his family. But when my aunt said she wanted a kayak and was looking at some commercialy available ones I naturally though about building her one instead.

Her criteria are:

- mostly for use in sheltered water
- mostly for exploring as opposed to long journeys
- high initial stability
- very manoeverable for playing in small creeks and inlets
- able to track well when required for straight line journeys
- lots of foot room: feet must be able to be vertical
- lightweight so easy to car-top and carry around.

A skin on frame might be a good option. But I also remembered the Mini Benny by Duane Strosaker (although mention of it now seems to have vanished from his website - I don't know why - Duane?) which looked interesting, for its small size and planing surfing ability, and then I came across the Bluesky Rockhopper too. This second one in particular seemed to meet a lot of the brief, while going further too: performs very well in rough water and surf. We get plenty of that as well as having creeks to explore, so that would be a great bonus.

Rolling all these ideas together I've come up with a possible design. Loads of rocker, very U'd bow, completely flat towards the stern - and with a transom! It feels like this might tick all the boxes.

- Short length, lots of rocker, U'd bow and flat bottom aft should all mean very manoeverable.
- Short length = light and easy to handle out of the water. Plus, wooden constrution is almost bound to be lighter than the polywotsit commercial alternatives anyway.
- Will probably track positively as is, with the hard chines in the aft half compared to the U'd front half giving some directional stability, but I would also add a retractable skeg to increase tracking further.
- Fairly wide, and flat bottom, will give high primary stability.

The looks have also grown on me since I designed it: I really quite like the odd transom now. I've been tweaking the design for a while and have pretty much settled on it as where I was trying to get to. Decision time: do I build it or not?

Opinions???