: My question is this. If things turn out well, I would be interested in
: selling the kayaks that I build, after seeing the prices that some
: builders can command.

A lot of beautiful strip-built kayaks in the UK seem to sell for less
than the cost of the materials in them.

: how would I go
: about getting a design of my own.

First, paddle as many different types of kayak as possible in many different
conditions, and with many different people - if you are designing to sell
you are also not necessarily designing the boat you yourself would like to
paddle. To get an idea of what others will want in a boat, get yourself
some kayak coaching qualifications, as well as some design expertise.

After a few hundred trips, you will start to get an idea of the type of boats
you will want to design. So you now have to start building prototypes. Each
prototype will take a couple of hundred hours (they don't have to be beautiful but they do have to be seaworthy:), and you will need to spend a few dozen
trips evaluating each one - some of the time paddling them yourself, some of
the time paddling a different boat with someone else in your prototype. For
every prototype, allow three to six revisions to get to a design that you
really believe will do what you intended. Of course, you can probably sell
some of those to the people who have tested them out with you, maybe for
enough to recoup the cost of materials, but probably not to cover your
labour - until you have an established reputation ....

Alternatively, paddle lots of boats and decide what you would like for
yourself. Build that. Paddle it. Decide how you could do better, and build
that. After a decade or so you should have a small fleet of boats that you
will find adequate for the sorts of trips you do in them. You may even be able
to bear to part with a few of them, but expect anyone looking to buy one to
be wondering why you aren't keeping it ...

Strip boats are really a personal thing - a good designer can sell plans
and books, but will never sell very many actual boats at a price that
realistically covers their labour.

Andy