: I am working on a One Ocean Cape Ann and wanted to ask if there is
: any need to add reinforcement braces under the deck.

: On my S&G kayaks I had a day hatch area so have two bulkheads
: just aft of the cockpit, and then aft of the rear hatch is a
: plywood brace that is about 1.5" tall running from the
: upper part of the hull and under the deck (it is the top part
: cut from a S&G building form). This is there to add strength
: to the rear deck, such as when doing a self-rescue.

: On the strip kayaks I have never seen any mention of adding any
: such under deck braces. I plan to only have the single bulkhead
: behind the cockpit (no day hatch), so I am concerned about the
: strength of the rear deck area. I can see on S&G kayaks that
: since they are constructed from more-or-less flat sheets that
: they don't have the eggshell compression strength that a strip

Hi Eric,
The deck is fibreglassed on the inside and as the glass is strong in tension you can get quite a bit of strength from a double layer of fibreglass there underneath the cockpit area.
If you add to that the extra glass around the coaming and have a bulkhead behind you, you have already plenty of support for the back deck.
JohnK

: kayak would have, but is this enough?