: I'm close to cuttiing out station forms for my 10ft. recovery yak and I
: thought I might add ribs along the keel and chines to aid in tracking. For
: a surf yak, this might not be a good idea maybe since you might want to
: slide sideways at times but generally speaking, what do you guys
: (figuratively speaking) think?

Cut the forms in the usual manner, and build the boat without any thought of such things.

After it is skinned you can consider whether you want an external keel strip. Generally these are anywhere from 1/4 inch thick to 1 1/2 inches thick, and 3/4 inches wide. The thicker they are the more they work as a keel, and affect tracking. These add very little to tracking in open water--for that a skeg works better and offers less resistance-- but in rivers, even shallow keels can snag on things and be a nuisance.

If the area where you commonly paddle has rough beaches an external keel strip will offer some additional protection against damage to the bottom of the hull--but only in the center of the boat. To protect a wider area people have put thin wood strips (skid strips) on the bottoms of their boats. These would be applied parallel to the keel, and straight. Putting them in with your forms might cause them to be curved, and increase the drag.

Skid strips do not need to be very thick, nor do they need to be the same dimensions as the keel. Strips 1/4 inch thick and 3/4 inch wide can be ripped from common 1x stock. Drill pilot holes so they don't split and aAtach them with screws or ring-shanked nails. Put a bead of some flexible sealant between the strip and the skin to keep out water which might leak through the hole made by your fastener.

Some people put a "Cap" over the keel. This is essentially a thin wood strip, as described above, or a brass strip. It adds nothing to tracking, but it does cover the area where the skin is bent over the inner keel chine. With some skinning methods nails are driven through the skin into that keel. Sometimes this is done only at the ends when excess fabric is removed. When the cap is screwed down it pinches the fabric to the inner keel, serving as a long clamp, and helping to seal areas prone to leaking. Besides serving as a seal, this cap also covers the area where the fabric makes a sharp bend, and offers some limited protection. (tears will then occur just next to the cap,in a place where they can't be easily patched without removing the entire cap! If you don't have a cap, band or keel strip then you can slap a piece of duct tape over any damage, and make more permanent repairs weeks later)

Hope this helps.

PGJ