I finished my first strip canoe last spring. I built a Prospector out of the Canoecraft book. It turned out looking fabulous. As the book suggested, I used a single layer of 6 oz fiberglass cloth on the inside and out with 3 coats of west systems epoxy. I then top coated the hull with 3 coats of Bristol 2 part poly. Before it was put in the water, I took it to a local outdoor festival as part of a display for our canoe club. Most of the comments were something like: "your not going to put that in the water, are you?" I was a proud papa. I then proceeded to take it the next weekend and put it on a river and scratched the hell out of it! Ha! My response was "I built it, I can fix it!". A few trips later, I had a second paddler in the canoe. We hit a few shallow shoals and flexed the bottom enough to crack the fiberglass in a couple of places. I'm about to start on the repairs.
All that being said, I'd like to start on my next boat this summer. I want to do a 12-13 foot solo cedar strip canoe. My plans on the front end are to use and abuse it on the rivers and creeks of the Ozarks. There will be overnight camping trips on class I and class II rivers with an occasional class III thrown in for kicks! Gravel bottoms and boulders will be the norm. I'd like to hear from anyone who has beefed up their boats with either additional coats of glass or possibly added Kevlar and or carbon fiber to the mix. I want to see if I can take my wooden boat where the plastic boats go! I'm happy with painting the outside of the hull on this boat if the composite materials do not finish clear. Like I said, I'll gladly sacrifice pretty for durability for this particular application. How do we make this boat as bullet proof as possible?