Michael,

There may be one way you could build a stripper in the time period you would like. Take a look at Bjorn Thomasson's site and read the parts of his "building manual" that discusses his rapid building method. The secret to his quick builds is that he doesn't glue the strips together when stapling them on the forms. After the strips are down he spreads epoxy over the strips, staples and all. When cured he pulls the staples and lays the fiberglass over the strips, which are held together by the epoxy that ran into the joints between the strips.

This technique would be ideal for the deck of the Great Auk if you used the straight section version described in Nick's book (no curvature in the deck immediately above the sheer line). If you could accept the aesthetics of simply running the strips off the sheer line and trimming them afterward you would have virtually no end fitting of strips on the deck. The hull would still require quite a bit of end fitting, but not gluing the strips would still save a great deal of time.

If you were willing to simply paint the kayak this method could really be fast (I believe most of Thomasson's "Black Pearl" designs end up being painted). Or you could varnish the deck and paint the hull.

This is the only stripping method I've heard of that might meet your time table.

Len Thunberg