Hi Shawn,

I'm no engineer but I have been thinking about this since the layup-testing debate a year or two ago.

It occured to me that the numbers gleaned by testing flat panels really won't mean much when you apply them to a curved hull shape. Again I was thinking about and egg shell, If you tried to determine the strength of an egg shell by testing flat "panels" of the shell, then the numbers wouldn't represent the strength of the shell because the strength comes from the shape. I think this has got to be similar with kayaks. (this is where I'll be shat-on from a great height by the engineers).

I think that on larger boats there may be a problem, if you scaled-down a large existing boat built to the same methods (and I'm talking about a 30'-40' boat) how would that compare to our Kayaks? I'm thinking the big boat might appear to be a little under-built, especially when compared to George's lay-ups.

I think that the lay-ups people on this board have been using must be adequate, or else we'd be hearing about a lot of hull failures. I've been a regular at this bbs for about 2 years and I'm yet to hear of any catastrophic hull failures. Then again maybe mums the word if you get home minus your boat;-)

Paul.