Hi, Mike-

I didn't post the original question with the thought "hey I have this great new idea that you all ought to start doing," rather it was more like "I had this thought, I assume some of you must have tried it, what are the pros and cons?"

Having this discussion has helped me refine the question. It's not really about "foam" it's about "panels." My perception is that with S&G you get from "pile of boards" to "boat ready for fiberglass" much more quickly and easily than with strip, for two reasons: significantly fewer parts (panels rather than strips) and no need to build forms. The downside, though, is my perception that when a kayak designer comes up with some "ideal shape" for a particular set of performance goals, and then adjusts that shape to allow it to actually be built, that the strip boat is much closer to that ideal than the S&G boat is. Is that fair to say? Given that - I'm wondering what would happen if you incorporated panels but kept the forms.

I re-watched Nick's videos regarding building a Petrel. It appears that the thing with strips is they bend "in" nicely, but they don't like to bend "up." As a result, you end up with spaces like those triangular-shaped areas between the sheer strip and the second strip that Nick fills in with "cheater strips" - a process that seemed to take a considerable amount of time and skill to accomplish. That seems like an example of where a single "panel," cut to fit into that shape, would save quite a bit of time and effort. Now, one might say "if that was a good idea then that's what Nick would be doing" but that's not true, because his goal for this particular boat isn't to save time and effort - if it was, he wouldn't bother book-matching the strips.

Taking that further - in my research on the Web, I don't see a huge number of companies producing kayak kits in the first place, and they need to market products that people are actually willing to buy. So the fact that nobody's selling a "panel over form" kit doesn't in and of itself prove that the idea wouldn't work, it could just be that there's no perceived market for such a thing. That's why I'm asking the question.