An archive search under the string 'George Roberts' will lead you to all his comments here on the BBS. His comments are acidic, terse, and often vague, but by reading enough of his one-liners, you can get a good idea of what makes George's building technique different.

George has some great ideas on materials and applications. Where he seems to go off the deep end, in my humble opinion, is in his notion that anyone who is paddling a wooden kayak that doesn't meet his specifications is paddling a 'death trap.' I don't know of anyone who has died or even come close due to the failure of a wooden kayak. If you read Sea Kayaker's 'Deep Trouble' you won't find anything related to wooden kayak failure. Most serious kayaking predicaments come about due to unskilled paddlers and poor risk assesment, not faiure of equipment.

Dean

> First, I'd like to say that I think it's commendable for you to provide
> these plans free to the boatbuilding public. Thanks.

> When searching your site, I found your "book reviews" and read
> your rather hostile assesment of the kayak building techniques used by
> Nick Schade and Ted Moores. I've read Nick's book, Vaclav's book, Chris
> Kulczycki's book and I'm reading Ted's book currently, so I find your
> comments somewhat puzzling and disconcerting.

> Perhaps I'm opening a can of worms here, but what do you do that's so
> radically different from their methods? I'm not looking to start a holy
> war, but as a would-be boat builder who's in the information gathering
> stage, I'm curious. If this has been discussed here before, feel free to
> email me with your response.