Before you assure your wife and son that their kayaks will be ready to paddle when the weather warms up, could I ask, are you aware that most people take about 200 hours to complete a strip built kayak, including ripping strips and setting up forms on the strongback? People with very high standards take 300 to 400 hours for one kayak.

Depending on the construction method you use, there will be days when you can only do an hour or two on the kayak and have to wait, possible even overnight before you can start the next step. 200 hours may be the equivalent of 25 days or two and a half weeks, but normally it takes quite a bit longer than that.

I guess you have read the description of the Night Heron and the Guillemot on Nick's site and that you have read comments about them on various kayak forums. I would think that the Guillemot might not be the ideal choice for a fairly new, not especially strong paddler. Some of the handling characteristics might make it a handful. An experienced paddler might like the way it handles, but I suspect a beginner might not.

The Great Auk would be a bit simpler to build. At least one aspect of the construction process would be simpler. However, it is quite a different style from the Guillemot.