Welcome to the world of yacht design. Most present day designers use computers... and its magic. just tell the program what you want and it does the hard work for you.

Most designs have tradationally been developed by using a table of offsets measures in feet inches and eights. The boat (kayak) is divided into cross sections. These are usually called stations. Starting at the bow with station number zero, 1 , 2 , 3, 4 etc, stern. This goves you the side view. A defineed a base line... simply a reference line to measure to... goves you the curve in the hull. All of the dimensions work off of this baseline. The baselune gives you the curve in the hull or rocker. This set of numbers defines your fore and aft measurements (bow and stern).

Next you need to define the width. These numbers are usually done along the same station posttions used for fore and aft. These are usually called half bredths. Measuring the width to the center of the boat

For sharpies (square) boats you only need to define Sheer and Chine. Chine is where the deck attaches to the hull or gunwale. Chine is where the bottom of the boat attaches to the side of the boat.

You can get a very nice kayak shape using square (hard) chines. Most of the boats Cheasapeake Ligntcraft markets were hard chine before they started using computers to develope additioanl hull panels.

Nick Schade's book on strip boult boats shows complete offsets for very complicated boats. He shows very detailed hull shapes. They are basically round versons of the simple concept described above. Welcome to the world of yacht design. Most present day designers use computers... and its magic. ‘just tell the program what you want and it does the hard work for you.

Most designs have traditionally been developed by using feet inches and eight’s. The boat (kayak) is divided into cross sections. Usually called mould stations. Starting at the bow with station number zero, 1 , 2 , 3, 4 etc, stern. This gives you the side view. Next define a base line... simply a reference line to measure to... this gives you the curve in the hull. All of the dimensions work off of this baseline. The baseline gives you the curve in the hull or rocker. This set of numbers defines your fore and aft measurements (bow and stern).

Next you need to define the width (side to side). These numbers are usually done along the same station positions used for fore and aft. These are usually called half breadths. Measuring the width to the center of the boat

For sharpies (square) boats you only need to define Sheer and Chine. Sheer is where the deck attaches to the hull or gunwale. Chine is where the bottom of the boat attaches to the side of the boat.

You can get a very nice kayak shape using square (hard) chines. Most of the boats Chesapeake Lightcraft markets were hard chine before they started using computers to develop additional hull panels. Nick Schade's book on strip built boats shows complete offsets for very complicated boats. He shows very detailed hull shapes. They are basically round versions of the simple concept described above.

Get the basic shape using the above method and build paper models. If the offset numbers are incorrect, the paper model will show how to make the corrections. I've built several of the boats in Ruel B. Parker's book: "The Sharpie Book" using the table of offsets method.

Using a combination of side and width you can draw views for the tope side or bottom just by laying down the points and connecting the dots in a fair curve.

Good luck!