Another thought regarding wooden kayaks: if you go back to the General Sea Kayaking forum on this site, to 4/26/07, you'll come across Adam Bolonsky's post titled "Decklines on Wooden Kayaks?". There, he discusses the safety consequences of the fact that almost all wooden kayaks do not have decklines (Many other kayaks don't have decklines either, these days.) Putting decklines on my painted boat was a no-brainer.