: Angling the aft bulkhead .... I do
: not see the effort is worth the quart of water that is excluded from the
: cockpit.

Its not a quart (or litre) out of the whole volume of the cockpit, though -
it is a litre out of the two or three that don't come out when you empty the
boat. A flat aft bulkhead makes the boat a lot harder to empty completely.
Mine is both angled and wrapped - one of the reasons for the angling is to
allow a tiny bit more space for a bulkhead hatch.

My footrest bulkhead is not just angled, but also dihedralled. It was made
from two pieces of 4 mm ply - the bulkhead meets the deck further forward
than it meets the keel, but it is also further forward at the chine than at
the centre line. That makes bigger feet fit slightly better in a smaller
kayak, allows my toes to be stretched further forward, reducing the pressure
on the balls of my feet, whilst still keeping the cockpit volume to the
minimum that I could feasibly get inside whilst wearing kayaking gear. I
had to take quite a bit of the heel off my wellies with the bandsaw, too !

The boat takes a lot of rock hopping abuse - most high-impact hits are under
the cockpit rather than under the forward bulkhead, so I don't worry about
that one being a stress zone. There's no sign yet of any ill effect from my
aft bulkhead being very rigid (I think it was 6 mm ply, and with a big stiff
plastic hatch occupying the whole space from deck to keel).

Haven't got a usable photo of the footrest bulkhead - but it was a right
b******d to build and fit in exactly the right spot. 5mm nearer the cockpit
and I wouldn't be able to get in the boat !

I am seriously thinking of building a whitewater boat next (although it will
mostly be used for pool sessions and certainly not on the rockiest bump and
scrape rivers we do!), and this will get bulkheads like a sea kayak (but
airbags too :-). These will certainly be angled, but padded to the right
place with thick foam (you need decent shock-absorption on a W/W footrest).
There will be pillar buoyancy foam in the cockpit, too, and a nice warm
foam seat ! If this works, I will get more complex and try a playboat. But
no-one does plans for these things :-(

Andy