Stitch+Glue Kayak Help!?

[ineed2fly]

A while back I built an 8' stitch and glue pram, and I gave a Kayak a shot with terrible results, it was incredibly unstable and was a complete failure =( I wanted to give it another shot, and I figured id see if anyone had any advice. What I'm looking for is a really short light kayak thats easy to store and easy to transport. Ideally the length would fit on one sheet of plywood so I don't have to splice pieces at all. The old one was 1 foot tall, 18" wide at the top, and 16" wide at the bottom, and was 8' long...it was a flat bottom with slightly angled sides. I'm thinking thats why it was so unstable. I'm 130lbs and 6' tall...so I don't think the short length should really be an issue. I was thinking of taking the free Laker 13' plans
( http://www.jemwatercraft.com/FreeKayakPlans.php )

And keeping the width the same and shrink it to 8' long, I'm going to sketch that up and see how it looks, but I really have no clue what direction to go with this project.

I'm building a set of 2 identical kayaks, that ideally I could join together into a pontoon boat, or even better a catamaran sailboat...if at all possible.

I LOVE the look of the old boat, very simple and elegant, and i'd love to stick as closely to that design as possible, if possible.

Ideally I would like to keep the old dimensions, but add more rocker, and a more curved shape to the bottom.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Nick

EDIT- I posted some pics of a new design I did in Google Sketch Up. At the top it's 8' X 18" At the bottom it's 7' X 10" which tapers off to a point. And the very center of the boat is 1' tall, and the sides are 10" tall.

Any ideas? Or am I just making a fool of myself? ;)

[Kleinbeck Boats]

Some boat designs can be modified by 10% max and not effect stability to much but a modification by that much for the sake of safety you should look for a different design that more closely matches your needs.

[River Explorer]

A few thoughts. I can't imagine designing a boat on Sketch It. I would suggest getting some real software, like Pro Chine. Length does have an effect on stability. If two boats are the same width, the longer boat will be more stable. Looking at your new design, it looks like it would be extremely tippy. The narrower a boat is at the waterline, the tippier it will be. I like that you went to a V bottom, but I would make it a more shallow V and widen it. Better yet would be a flat bottom with two chines.