I built an Osprey 13" for my then 8 yr old daughter 2 years ago. I can't
vouch for the handling as I am too big for it (~180 lbs & can barely get in
to the cockpit), but Emma has a blast with it on local rivers (Michigan
also: the Grand & Red Cedar) and on smaller lakes. The boat is quite quick.
She has no problems keeping up with a group on rivers. It was my first boat
build & went well. I took about 2 months to build it, not counting the
varnish work. Pygmy provides very good detailed instructions. Just now I
have an Arctic Tern 17' in the garage under construction. I have the planks
glued up & the wires out of the hull and am preping for glass on the
outside. I should have that done by the weekend.

Rich Bailey


"Dave" wrote in message
om...
I'm looking at building a kayak for my 14 year old son (110 lbs and
not likely to get much bigger than 140 lbs). I like John Winters canoe
and kayak designs. If I could get plans for a stitch and glue version
of the Tasman Sea, I'd buy them. I'd like a stitch and glue for this
project to keep down the frustration level of building with a easily
distracted, easily frustrated 14 year old. In addition, the stitch
and glue designs start looking like a real boat faster to keep the
interest level up. But stitch and glue plans don't exist for the
Tasman Sea so I've been looking at Pygmy stitch and glue plans and
kits (amongst others which I've started to rule out). Specifically
I'm trying to choose between the Pygmy 14' Arctic Tern or biting the
bullet with frustration and some additional cost and building the
Winters Tasman Sea design.

But can anyone shed some light on the handling differences? Granted
the Pygmy Artic Tern is a hard chined boat compared to the strip
configuration of the Winters design so there will be some obvious
handling differences, but has anyone had the opportunity to compare
the two? If not, have you been able to compare a Pygmy Osprey,
Coho,or Arctic Tern to a Swift Caspian Sea or a QCC 300 or 400 (John
Winters designed boats)? The use for this kayak will be tooling
around the chain of lakes we live on and for playing on waves on our
frequent trips to Lake Michigan. Thanks for any help you can give.

Dave