: I'm looking for offsets or design specs for a general-purpose or
: high performance S&G sea kayak. Would greatly appreciate
: pointers to websites or books that contain a good designs.

When it comes to high performance sea kayaks a lot of people look at baidarkas. They are long and slim, generally a good indication of a speedy boat. Check out George Dyson's book, "Baidarka".

Now these happen to be skin-on-frame designs, but you can build almost any SOF design in plywood. There are a lot of free designs available for S-O-F boats, including books filled with measurements taken from museum collections.

Think of your plywood as the skin fabric. Build the ribs from cheap particleboard, or even cardboard, and rip cheap pine into thin chines. Use these ribs and chines to make the frame of any skin-covered-boat design. Then lay your plywood again the frame, and use a pencil to trace along the edge of two adjacent chines. Add half the width of the chine stock to these lines, so the edges of your panels meet in the middle of each chine, and cut your plywood into the panels for the boat. Clamp them to the chines, or attach with hot glue, staples, brads, or wires. Align them with the chines. If you want to glue them to the chines you can skip the fillet on the inside of each seam. When you have the panels attached to each other, knock out the ribs and put in a cockpit coaming and any hatches you want.

Voila, planless S&G design.

Have fun.

PGJ