So I am thinking about a fishing kayak and weighing all my options, I like the idea of building my own stuff and these boats are much better looking than the plastic or fiberglass ones and they are much cheaper than stich and glue or strip planked wood boats. I am going to be looking and trying out some plastic boats before I make up my mind but I do have some questions.
I'm thinking if I build my own the stonefly or cast away.
I am a bit of a big guy 270 pounds plus gear fish etc. I'm thinking I need to plan for at least a 300 pound payload. Would that be too heavy for these boats?
A lot of the people that fish from kayaks use sit on top for the openness to be able to put gear in but there are some hybrid that are more like a canoe. The openness of the stonefly appeals to me but my only experience with a canoe is the big multi man ones with single blade oars. Nothing wrong with that but not my cup of tea, I read the stonefly was designed as to be paddled with a double paddle if you put in a seat like the lawn chair seat I saw in one picture or one with back rest and sits you up a little higher does this boat really paddle differently from the motions with a sot kayak or the cast away?
Has anyone put an anchor trolley on one of these boats and or would you see a structural problem with adding some mount points to the frame for one down the side.
On the questions of the plywood frames, I really don't the looks of plywood in my wood working and I have started laminating pieces when I can. But I don't build for strength normally just looks, so my question is if you milled some pieces of say cedar 1/4 in thick and kept it 6 in or so wide could you laminate two or thee wide together with overlap joints would that possible substitute for the plywood frame pieces? On the cast way it is hidden by skin so no big deal but it is something that stands out to me and if I could not laminate I would probably end up making edge trim for the plywood.