I wholehearted agree with your looking into the Wee Lassie for your still water/river forays. I built the 11/5' version from MAc McCarthy's book "Featerweight Boatbuilding" (very thorough book) for my son. The boat is easy to build, is very light to car-top and carry. You can modify the deck to provide more cover, etiher by hard stripping, ply decking, or a modified sprayskirt over sprung ribs if you wish. You would have to add cheek plates and create a fairly tight seat/cockpit to be able to do any wet re-entry roll-overs, because the beam is rather wide, and the open cockit is very roomy

I recently put the little boat to the test by using it myself for a 5 day trip into the Minnisota Boundary Waters Canoe Area. The little boat is very responsive and ideally suited for someone of moderate size. I'm a big guy, 6'-3" & 225# and pushed the boat in the Boundary waters. I had other party members carry most of my gear in their regular canoes, but was at ease with carrying my day gear. The end chambers can be made larger to provide more storage space. Other members of the party coudn't wait to make camp so they could "play" in the boat.

> Here are some double paddle boats to consider. Take a look at Stillwater
> boats (www.by-the-sea.com/stillwaterboats). He has a couple of designs
> that may intrest you. They are a type of plywood construction and are very
> nice looking. He has a wee lassie type canoe around 11.5' and there is a
> small kayak of about the same length. I just finished up a larger version
> of a wee lassie canoe. They are very nice little boats.....light and
> simple. Mac McCarthy lives and paddles in Sarasota FL. He has a book
> called featherweight boatbuilding. You cna build the boat right from the
> book or you can buy patterns from Mac. These boats have small decks with
> air chambers on each end.....You could easily extend the decks on this
> little boat if you wanted, move the bulkheads to give you a good bit of
> floatation/storage and have just a small open cockpit . You can even rig
> this boat to sail...I hear they are pretty good sailors, and the longer
> decks and built in floatation would certatinly make it easier to deal with
> a capsize. He offers building classes in his Sarsota shop.