Well... it is possible I went to large but I don't think so. It takes a lot to break plywood. And most people are overly cautious too. I wanted to keep the weight down as much as possible. I finally weighted the first one, wet after coming off the water it was 31-32 lbs. Most of that has to be in the skin and the finish. The frame is so light.

The frames are marine plywood. The stringers are WRC. I can not find good wood here either so I scarf mine. I buy the best I can find, cut them to width and then cut out the knots with a scarf cut and glue them up to length. It's really pretty straight forward with the table saw jig for the cut. I would use redwood if I could find it but it's available. We have lot of oak and pine and that's about it. No decent boat woods around here.

After my accident I am very careful but I like my scarf jig for the tablesaw. I just make darn sure I have nothing in line of the blade now! Especially my thumb! Otherwise I find scarfing pretty straight forward. I am going to make a jig of some 'L' shaped blocks to clamp the scarf to to assure they line up. That's the only problem, just making sure the joint doesn't shift when I clamp it.