I built a Bear Mountain "Redbird" about a month ago and we are taking it to Woodland Caribou PP in a few weeks. We'll be doing about 40 portages, so I expect she will have at least that many scratches! But as uncle Nick says, it's not a boat until it's scratched :-) I did have it sprayed with 3 coats of PPG clear 2 part poly, so that should help. She came in at 41 pounds with 3/16" strips, cedar gunwales wrapped with 3.2 oz glass, 3.2 oz throughout with 2 layers on the bottom. I even added some weight with magnetic hatches in the sealed bulkheads and she is still a lightweight!

Bryan K