Greetings from Indianpolis. My Merganser 17W is 95% complete (1 more coat of epoxy on the hull and varnish). This is my first kayak (I'm a beginning kayaker), and it has been a joy to build! Eric's plans are well laid out, and any questions I had were quickly answered in a phone call to him. The only down side is you have to build from plans (he does not sell kits). I built mine with 5.2m lauan (at $7/sheet) and glad I did. I had to re-cut 1 set of the deck panels, and made a few other mistakes. I have a building journal on the web (its about 2 week behind), if you want to see what I done.

Also, new post on the Trips Bulletin Board ("not exactly a kayak trip, but...") where Lee (who works for CLC, I think) paddled the Merganser and had some very nice comments about it.

Good luck and keep us posted. -- Greg

: I've been admiring Eric Shade's Merganser design and am considering building
: one of my own. Any opinions on this boat from those who have build or
: tried one?