: Hi, New poster here.

: I'm also getting ready to make a sea pup. It'll be a wood framed one. The
: design is 14'x19". For that size boat, should I expect the gunwales
: to end up around 15'? I'm in the planning stage, deciding how much and
: what materials to buy when I head off to the store.

: Anyone have strong opinions on construction grade materials vs. okoume and
: cedar/cypress/DF for a kid kayak with a limited life in fresh water? One
: store is a mile, the other is 70 miles away.

Tim -

I'm only a few months ahead of you. I started my daughter's Sea Flea in January of this year after months of trying to convince myself that I should jump in and build a boat.

Bill's right - you only lose a few inches to the curvature of the boat. One of the guys at the lumber store did some fancy calculations and told me specifically what I'd lose for a 18' boat. BUT- it was still just inches.

Next, I ended up following Tom's suggestion and going with exterior grade plywood. All of the plywood gets a coat of epoxy and cut edges get 2 coats.

For stringers, I found a couple of local places that sell western red cedar and I simply went with that. The lumber place was willing to cut a 1x6 into 3/4" "strips" for me.