My 5th hull is a 16'-0" x 21-1/2" hard chine built from plans created by One Ocean Kayaks. The deck is cedar strip formed by placing temporary stations 12" apart. Forward of the cockpit, the stations are 13" radius with 36" radius stations aft. I used 28" and 20" stations through the cockpit area to transition. Starting from the sheer, cedar strips are clamped to the stations and then temporarily hot melt glued to the hull. Successive strips glued together with a good wood glue can then be run parallel to the sheerline or centerline to produce designs and textures.

Cedar native to Maine is Northern White and can be quite varied. Red cedar and spanish cedar is consistently dark. Cedar is lighter than the plywood also. I found a design advertised on Newfound Woodworks (newfound.com) and tried to do the same. I stapled into the stations instead of clamping, once I got through 1 deck, I couldn't wait to start the next one. For this deck, my daughter cut out full length mermaids of textured paper to overlay onto the deck under the fiberglass cloth. Yesterday, we got some of the first photos, I have posted on sheepscotwoodenkayaks.com under In Progress.

The deck has been joined to the hull. Joelle and I epoxied the mermaids down onto the deck Monday night and I am in the process of building up with a couple coats of epoxy before glassing. This reveals a preview of how the mermaids will look when finished. I am going to try and add a photo.