I saw Tom's butt block method. It does look really strong... I just can't stand the sight of them *grin*. Even with a sea sock covering the interior, I'd still know they were there.

How well do the scarf joints bend? I thought about scarfing two 8'ers together, but it places the joint right in the middle of the kayak. Strength-wise, I'm not worried, but I'm not sure how it would effect bending the strangers.

: Scarfs aren't impossible, work quite well. All of my Yost boats
: have scarfed stringers. For that matter butt blocks work too and
: Tom has them in his plans, somewhere, and are seriously simple
: to make. Just put them at the ends so the bending issue isn't a
: problem "requires two joints per stringer done that
: way".

: Bill H.