Hi Rosanna-

I don't know that there is a best skin/coating combination. It's best to decide what you will actually use the kayak for, and then make the choices that you feel most comfortable with. As far as I'm concerned the two main rules are: don't use a coating that won't stick to your fabric, and don't use a coating that is less flexible than the fabric you choose.

Here's a link to a very detailed post by George Dyson, who has been selling fabric for SOF craft since 1980. He doesn't mention Coelan, but I don't think it was available in this country when he wrote the post. There's a lot of info in the latest edition of The Masik on the Qajaq USA site as well.

http://www.qajaqusa.org/cgi-bin/TechniqueForumArchive10_config.pl/read/13891

m