Good morning everyone...
Relatively noob to kayaking and definitely new to building. Closest thing to building I've ever done is Ikea furniture....
Been lurking and researching for the last week or so wanting to build a SeaRider. There's so much info out there it's been hard to sort it all out and hope you can bear with me on this one. I've done forum searches etc and my head is about to burst so thought I should straight up ask.
OK... questions

A. I have space limitations (condo livin') and my budget does not allow me to build a folder so... Can a Sea Rider(or sea cruiser maybe) be scaled down to be a 13'-14' boat? Or else can any of the shorter LOA boats (ie. sea tour 13) xsections be cut in the aft to be same height as gunwale? Will it be noticeably slower than a longer boat? Love the aesthetics of a Greenland kayak and wanna do quick daytrips, maybe overnighter for now.

B. I like the lashing technique... do I still need to dowel the whole thing?

C. Are stanchons needed for the coaming baseplate? Is a coaming baseplate even needed? I saw Kudzucraft.com video on Polyester skinning, which is what I want to use, and he just strapped the coaming on there and let the skin become taut from the coaming pulling on it post-sewing.

D. Somewhere I read that pine is heavier/stronger than cedar and redwood. That said in this post somewhere, someone said you could make pine stringers slightly smaller in width than stated in the plans for the purpose of keeping weight down... Does that make sense to do? So instead of ie. Sea rider chine/keel 1"x .75" it can be .75"x.75" gunwales 1.25"x.75"? Will pine take resin well?

E. HOw in the world do you tint Zar oilbased poly finish?

I know I'll ask more at some point. Thank you everyone. Respect and cheers!