I am building a K1 17' long by 17" wide. My Kirton K1 is skinnier than that and of course is crazy unstable. But I love it and paddle it everyday, but want something more stable in winter. I have noticed that most racing skis are 21'... I have a Fenn Mako Millennium and a Custom Kayaks Icon also, and they are both 21', so I figure 21' has become the go-to number for most ski designers. A compromise between longer waterline, but not so long that it increases wetted surface area perhaps?

If I were doing a ski, I would've done 21' x 17" and made strong cutaways on the deck (like my K1 and the new epic V12), a single footwell. I weigh 190lbs and have had a 130lb friend laying on the back deck of my Fenn without it sinking (talk about a circus trick!). The Epic skis are rated at around 300lbs I think.

There's a guy name Ulf (http://www.johanssonkajak.com) who has done a couple nice faster boats.. be sure to check back through last years posts for pics from the last kayak he did.. Lots of good pics.

Eric

: Just googled paulownia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulownia). Being used
: for surfboards at the moment so will try and track some down. thanks for
: the heads up.

: The Tahitian ski pics are what swung me towards a stripper instead of an S&G.
: I'll try and make contact with him and get some details. I can't see any
: reason why a timber boat could not be as raceworthy as a glass boat. If
: weight can be kept down around 15/16kg then that is comparable to a
: performance layup in a mainstream ski at the moment. Sure the big guns
: have their 10kg boats but these are few and far between except at the real
: big events.

: Anybody have thoughts on the length query? I'm a fair sized unit myself so
: don't want to invest time&money building something that is too small. One
: con that i forsee in building my own rather than buying a namebrand boat
: is reselling. its easy enough to offload an ocean ski here at the moment
: because their popularity is growing so rapidly. Wooden vessels attract
: lots of oohs & arhhs but are hard to sell so this would be a keeper.
: Got to get it right.

: Cheers