Many people have the mistaken notion that owning and paddling a wooden kayak is a big compromise of features and versatility in favor of having a beautiful vessel. Yet every choice of kayak, fiberglass or wooden, fabric or plastic, is somewhat of a compromise, and while there are tradeoffs, paddling a beautiful wooden boat does not require sacrifices. Used correctly, wood is one of the greatest building materials known.
Wood is, in itself, a composite of tubular voids surrounded by harder lignin cellulose.
Harder, stronger summer wood is bonded in layers to softer, less dense spring wood. When the wood shell of a kayak is completed and sheathed with a protective layer of stiffer, shiny fiberglass, a rigid monococque structure is produced. The wood and fiberglass composite offers a unique 'symbiotic' relationship. The fiberglass protects the wood from water saturation and everyday scrapes and dings. Some wooden kayak paddlers are highly reluctant to drag their laden kayak onto a rocky beach.