hey Kurt,
I've ad nauseumed near every stitch and glue, tack and tape site on the www, and gained a little insight on a lighter style of shell making. It looks like you need some moves - generally it's straight forward if you work neat and have a little experience with the steps. I may give it a whirl on the house-pram, using 3/16" meranti and 6 oz? woven glass inside and out. This is a big little pram and we'll have to fight to keep it light. The trial model will be 1/4" luan from H.D. which is actually 3/16".
Surfers have a simple solid structure to work on, while kyackers are skin. I'd like to look in on a master on that! (If you have more than a vague interest in the process, check out OneOceanKayakdotcom, incredible!) Have not seen a foamsheet canoe/kyack yet. For weight control, once the fabric is wetted, you can carefully squeegy off excess epoxy - one guy said - almost as good as vacuum. Dynel and matt could not be used.
But foam is a way to go. One site reminded us that added unsinkables should be above the waterline. (Some water in the bottom of a dinghy might be a good stability thing. Burden boards (added weight) be good to design in.
A solid ply bottom sounds right to me, with composite foam sides, all composite foam interior, seats and closed off spaces. But the weight will add up fast.
You can get foam composite board already made up. But it is way too stiff to be used when you need to bend it. Unless you have an oven it which to soften it. Too tech for me.
With a curvey pram you'd have to use sliced foam and the vacuum method to drive the epoxy into every small space. The result would be fantastic, but probably the result not lighter than a shell boat.
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Did have a mental about the flooding scenario of a self-rescue dinghy.
That is: a shaped nylon tarp could be fitted loosely into the interior of the boat, attached around the inwale. You would with a crisscrossed strap or two, yank up on this membrane to spill the water from the dinghy. You wouldn't need to have this in place all the time - it might be good to have it rigged in its waiting rescue mode when the dinghy is stowed on deck. The tarp wouldn't have to waterproof the interior, it could be removable for normal tendering, or it could become a tent in rescue mode still attached to the wales. The idea really is to lift the tarp and pull a good amount of water out to get the dinghy habitable.
Well, OK, good beginning. Let's do make the water-out tarp the dinghy's tent and add some pumpup tubes for ribs to keep it up, and let's include a valve with which we can collect rain water, but of course... Make it so!
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