Gary, I made 20' rowing shell from 4mm okoume designed by clc boats. The
instructions called only for fiberglass tape over filleted seams. Insted of
6oz prefabricated tape I used strips cut diagonally from 4oz fabric. This
creates a kind of biaxial arrangement of fibers that allowed me to save some
weight in glass. However I believe that the most weight saver are thin
fillets. Epoxy is the heaviest component in the laminate. Removing glass
will save some weight, but probably not as much as you might expect. You'll
still have to epoxy the panels. Also cut and align the panels precisely so
that there are no gaps thet need to be filled with epoxy. Remove the wires.
If the instruction calls for nails for attaching the deck, use the screws
instead. After the glue sets remove them and fill the holes with epoxy. Use
masking tape when filleting and scrape any excess epoxy before it fully
hardens. Apply thin epoxy coats with a squeegee and again scrape away any
sags and runs. Scraper will be your most used tool at this stage.

Please be aware that rowing shell is not supposed to hit rocks.

Also weight reduction is being discussed heavily at CLC forum
http://www.clcboats.com/forum/bbs.pl/

Happy building!

wrote in message
oups.com...
Looking for experienced boat builders here. I am building an okume kit
kayak and am wondering if I can save weight by not placing a full glass
layer inside the hull.

My thinking is that I can get away with only glassing the butt joints
and edges on the inside along with a thin coat of resin for
waterproofing. Yes its going to be weaker (no fiberglass to take the
compressive forces) but has anyone done any tests to see how much
weaker?

If I have to I might just glass the cockpit area to help with required
durability (feet, stones and sand). Will this create any weird foces
beyond the bulkheads? (My boat will be 17 feet long).

Links to experiments on this would be great!

Thanks
Gary