: How do you fit once you're in the boat? Or havn't you been able to
: get in?

: Might be alot easier to get in the way I do on my Greenlander, let
: the boat sit at the edge of the water but sitting on it's
: bottom, sit on the rear deck with your feet in the cockpit,
: straighten you legs, hold onto the coaming and slide your legs
: in while dropping your butt onto the seat. Once you get used to
: doing that it's pretty easy. I now do it that way even with a
: keyhole cockpit, it's just easier.

: Bill H.

I wouldn't necessarily look for a higher decked / higher volume boat...choose the hull design you like for paddling.

Then, as Bill is suggesting, try to adjust the cockpit to suit your needs. It's not to hard to raise the deck in front of the coaming; this lifts the front lip of the coaming, making the angle of entry a little easier when using Bill's technique. (It's also a good idea to stiffen the deck immediately behind the cockpit with an extra layer of glass on the underside.) Jay Babina suggested I do so to accommodate my size 12 feet on the Outer Island I built. It was easy, splitting the station templates at the sheer line and spacing them together to add the extra depth, which was 1" at the station at the front of the coaming and successively 1/4" less on each station going forward (to achieve a fair shape). Frankly, the extra room probably didn't matter to my feet, but eased entry into the ocean cockpit a lot.

If flexibility is an issue, you might just fit a larger keyhole cockpit so you have room to tuck your legs in more easily. Find a boat you can enter more easily, then make a template of the coaming to guide you.