Hello all,

I'm interested to make my own WW boat, and would like to pick your collective brains for design knowledge. For a number of reasons, I'm going to make it out of some composite material, probably fiberglass. I'm looking to build using a two part casting from a reusable mold. I would learn more this way than doing a one-off boat and leaving the plug inside the boat. Plus, I'd have a mold that others would be welcome to use. I'm going to make a couple quarter-scale boats first as an exercise in design and in working with the tools and materials, then when I think I have a design dialed in, I'll make a full-scale boat for testing.

I would like to ask for everyone's help with design principles. I want to design a capable river runner/playboat, mainly for myself, but I may find interest in making a few to sell. I don't want to rip off others' work, but commercially produced boats inescapably force some inspiration upon me. I think most modern boat designs have been strongly influenced by Corran Addison and Eric "EJ" Jackson. Still, I don't want to just copy a design, especially if I might make a little money from it.

In the past several years I have only paddled my WaveSport ForPlay, which, though very fun, is too small on the inside and too long on the outside. I would like to better understand which physical attributes yield which performance characteristics. I have seen boats with forked bows, swallow-tailed sterns, hard chines, soft chines, no chines, center channels, diced bottoms, etc., but I don't really understand the design decisions that led to any of these. I think I get chines, generally, but I'm sure there is more to learn: "How far forward should they start, how far back should they end, etc.?" I'm going to demo a few boats and borrow some others from friends, but I would still like some input from the community.

This will be my only boat for a while, so I would like a capable river runner, but with some playboat characteristics. The Jackson Fun and the Fluid Flirt both look very fun to me, but I have yet to paddle either.

I have found <[URL=http://www.thekayakstore.com/TKS3_design101.asp]this page[/URL]> which describes some design principles. Anyone know of other resources specific to kayak design? I plan to use Ross Leidy's  
<a href="http://www.blueheronkayaks.com/kayak/index.html>Kayak Foundry"</a>
as was done in this article.
http://playak.com/article.php?sid=1243  
but again, I'm interested to hear of any alternatives.

I think that I want the following, but would love to hear others' ideas:
    ~6.5' length
    ~24" width
    a planing hull
    ~55 gallon volume  
    hard chines (maybe multiple?)
    kick rocker (front and back)
    slicy ends
    moderate to low flare  
    (insert "Office Space" flair jokes here)
    plenty of room my feet  
    knees about as high as my lower ribs
    Jackson happy feet and happy seat
    minicell for thigh braces and hip braces
    minicell pillars front and back
    front and rear metal security loops
    front and rear grab loops
    2-3 FCS fin boxes - why not?
    
If anyone is interested in helping with design, and of course testing, or just in building one off the mold when I'm done, or if you just need a quarter-scale kayak gravy boat for Thanksgiving dinner, please let me know.

I have space in Snoqualmie, or we could ask for space at the Center for Wooden Boats in Seattle. I know this won't be a wooden design, but I think they may be sympathetic.


create a two-piece mold and have found all the information on how to manage that aspect of the project, but I know very little about boat design and I'm not interested in taking industrial design courses that won't address what makes a boat

http://boatertalk.com/forum/BoaterTalk/687393#687435