Went to Mystic Boat Show Friday, am ... had to hurry through there, as I made a commitment to help a friend with a project in the afternoon ... here are a couple of things I found interesting...

1) Hybrid Kayak - Newfound is making hybrid kits - S&G hull, Cove and bead deck.

2) Little Dubber Kayak - an extremely simple Kayak, either 7&1/2' or 9', made from 1/8" luan doorskin. Looks something like a canoe that was squeezed from the ends and widened, with the sides rolling up into the cockpit area ... looks like a neat project for a `10-14 y.o. boy or girl who might not have the patience it takes for a S&G or stripper. No web site; 76 page instruction manual is $15 ... e-mail me if you want more info.

3) Swamp Yankee also has $15.00 plans for a neat little S&G Solo Canoe that also might be neat for a kid's first project.

4) "Plastic Nails and Staples" ...a vendor has something called Raptor engineered polymer composite Finish Nails and staples ...may this be an alternative to metal staples and nails? Supposedly, you can sand off the nail heads and staples after the glue/epoxy drys. The nails are interconnected in a strip for nailing guns, but it is easy to separate them into individual nails. They are tan in color ....Utility Composites, INC. Austin, TX, 1-800-460-6933.

5) Alternative to Varnish ... with the coaming and hatch covers on the yak that I built and posted pictures on the 19th, I used 6 different colors of wood, and was disappointed that they all ended up looking a different shade of amber after applying Flagship varnish. So I brought a hatch cover with me and went from booth to booth looking for ideas .... bottom line was the recommendation for either one or two part polyurethanes from the vendors at the show. Some examples are Armada 2000, Epifanes Polyurethane Clear Gloss, etc. Might try one of these for better color definition next time. The vendors claim compatibility with epoxy and UV filtration.

Please don't take any of this for gospel - these are people pushing their products (that I haven't used) and may not be the best. And the surface coating people didn't have any 2oz. samples for me to try, so experimentation is going to be expensive. The z-spar person said that the Captains would be "less amber" than the Flagship. But to me, polyurethane might be the way to go, as it is faster drying between coats, less sanding between coats, and fewer coats and harder. Comments welcome!