> Have you ever made a stitch-and-glue boat with your lay-up method? If so,
> what did it weigh? I've been toying with the idea of making a light
> hard-chine s-n-g with 3mm okoume and something approximating your lay-up.
> Obviously 3mm okoume will be a bit heavier than 1/8" cedar or redwood
> strips. I built an Arctic Tern with 4mm okoume and a standard 6-oz.
> lay-up, and it weighs 37#. I think I could get under 30# with the above
> material changes.

> One difference that would be tough to quantify, though, has to do with the
> flex in flat panels as opposed to the inherent stiffness of a curved
> panel...

> Dean

Dean,

I used 1/8" mhogany plywood and multiple (1-3) layers of 3.25 oz satin glass on my plywood Walrus. I overdid it in a few places (plywood backed butt joints, 4 plywood bulkheads, and 6 deckbeams). The kayak weighs in at 33 lbs. If I used 3mm okoume, it might have saved a few pounds. I also used cedar stringers and stems instead of fillets. If you do a really good job on your fillets you might save a little bit there. A lower volume kayak would also be a little lighter. Mine has a 22" beam, but a fairly low deck.

If you pick a low volume design, find light 3mm okoume, use multiple layers of thin glass, are careful with your fillets, and don't apply too much epoxy, then you could easily build a sub-30 pound kayak. At 33 pounds this kayak is plenty light.

The hull on my kayak is quite stiff (as stiff as the my Tern), not much flex at all. I built a combination flat and peaked deck like a Pygmy Queen Charlotte, so I put the deck beams in, but still have quite a bit of flex in the deck, between the beams and the bulkheads, but I only did one layer of glass on each side of the deck. Comparing the deck and the hull, even before glassing, the curved panels were much stiffer than straight ones.

Mike