: I began the discussion in this thread, and Bill gave me some really good
: feedback-

: http://www.kayakforum.com/cgi-bin/Building/index.cgi/page/2

: Basically, I am building a one off whitewater kayak; more of a technical
: steep creeker than anything. Looking for something that can handle Class
: IV and decent class V stuff. I created my design basically grabbing from
: my favorite aspects of dominant designs in the market. The link at the
: bottom has some screen shots of the design.

: I am definitely going for bomb proof. Orignally I was looking at laminating
: S-Glass with Polyester through an S-P-S-P layup on the outside of my 4mm
: Okoume Stitch and Glue Build, with a layer of Kevlar on the inside. Bill
: pointed out that the great strengths of the Kevlar might be wasted on the
: inside next to the wood, as opposed to somewhere else in the lamination.

: I did a lot of thinking, trying to determine whether a "wood core"
: was truely a good idea for a whitewater boat, and taking Bill's advice, as
: well as some from an old whitewater glass boat builder i know, and I am
: basically elimating the wood from being the "core material" and
: now its mainly just a shape holder for the outer materials. Most people
: build whitewater boats from molds, but i think Stitch-and-Glue will lend
: itself well to this boat build, even tho i will have extra, seemingly
: unnecessary weight.

: So now the hull lamination is S-Glass : Kevlar : S-Glass: Kevlar to get work
: off of the strengths of both materials. S-Glass is extremely strong both
: in compression and tension, while Kevlar is incedibly strong in tension
: (not great in compression). I am going with S-K-S-K over just S-S-K-K to
: slightly pay tribute to ballistic armour designs, as well as squirt boat
: layups. I'm hoping over time that layup will be able to handle the maximum
: amount of abuse i can get out of those layups. I WILL be hitting rocks, so
: its a matter of making sure i don't bust through the hull while in the
: middle of a steep 9 mile class V run.

: There are few boats i have heard of which will be built up quite as tough as
: this... so hopefully that pays off. A lot of whitewater racing boats are
: only 2-3 layers thick, so... we'll see.

: ~Johnathan

Oh ok. Sounds like a fun project!