Michael,

You talking inside or out?  

Laszlo

glass the deck and hull seams...you won't regret it.

the glass, in addition to providing extra strength beyond the plywood only, also serves to help ensure that the wood is truly encapsulated in epoxy and not exposed to water....which will quickly wreck a wood-cored boat.

it is a lot easier to ensure an appropriately thick, complete epoxy encapsulation job with the glass there as a guide than without glass.  so while the strength may not be required (though it will make it stronger), i would glass for the sealing properties it promotes.

the older construction manuals for some of the CLC kayaks only called for epoxying the decks.   after a lot of experience, they updated them and the kit contents to make glassing the deck standard.

h

   Hi Laszlo, I am talking outside. On my previous Duck I glassed the whole boat, hull and deck. For the reasons that hspira suggusts above. Made sense to me. The reason for my query now is that I plan to varnish the sapele deck ( I am painting the hull). I was reading recently about challenges 10 years or so down the line if I need to competely re-do the varnish - trouble disturbing the epoxied fiberglass in stripping old varnish. Which made me wonder about glassing.

Thanks for your comments!

--michael

In addition to what Howard said about encapsulation, the other thing that fiberglass gives you is abrasion resistance, As you may have noticed, okoume is soft and sapele is brittle. Fulley cured epoxy and glass is as hard as formica.

I revarnished my WD12 at 7 years with no trouble. There's no need to strip it, just wet sand it with #400 paper and apply the new varnish. You shouldn't be sanding into the epoxy/glass, just barely touching its surface.

Have fun,

Laszlo

   Thanks Laszlo, you alleviated my concerns about the varnishing down the road. I'll do this Duck in the same manner I did the previous boat . . .

--michael