1) The estimate in the manual is 100 hours.  I am new to fiberglass, and my woodworking is more in framing/construction than cabinetry/finish work.  I would say it took me closer to 200 hours.

2) I don't know.  I would guess that you can order it and pick it up yourself, but I'm not sure whether they'll handle making sure it's cut and in stock waiting for you.  They may not even have a staging area suitable for such a hold.

3) Hybrid means that you will use marine plywood for the hull/internal construction, and then create the top deck from strips of wood that you put together lighter and darker pieces to make whatever pattern you'd like.  The normal version just has a plywood deck also.

-Matt

   Thanks for the reply Matt, sounds like a lot more time than I would have guessed!  Was time estimate for the kit or did you make your own parts?  I am somewhat familer with glassing surfboards and fairly handy with tools and such but am not a woodworker by any means.

Thanks for explaining the hybrid thing for me.  Seems like it would be nice but probably quite a bit of time to get done properly.  I do like the look of wood so some kind of stain on the nomral ply would be fine for me.  One has to deal with the UV issue in this use case?   I guess just pick marine grade stains?  Not really super important I guess, I would just do whatever the manual says. :)

   That was the time estimate for the kit.  I also built from the kit.  For me, the wood working part went together really quickly.  It was the glassing that took me a long time.  Part of the problem was that I didn't have enough time to put the second/third/fourth layers of epoxy on during the tacky time of the previous layer, so I had to do a lot of sanding.

For stains, there are several threads on the forum if you manage to search the right terms.  I think the main thing is that the stain has to be water soluable.  Don't take my word for it, find the thread.  I know that some times the stain can run...

The UV issue is a problem for the epoxy, so staining doesn't really effect it either way.  The epoxy needs some UV protection.  The main way that this effects staining is the realization that a varnish is likely to impart a bit of a yellowish tinge to things underneath.

Keep in mind that the epoxy/varnish will give the wood a different appearance than just bare wood.  It is darker, almost as if the wood was continually wet.  The look can be approximated by wiping it down with denatured alcohol, but that trick works best after the epoxy is applied, which is too late for stain.  I would recommend staining and putting epoxy on a test piece to see what the final effect is going to be.

-Matt

   Regarding staining...Okumi plywood looks kind of dull without epoxy.  However, it is good looking after being covered with epoxy and then varnished.  Most varnish has an amber tint so staining really isn't necessary.  Before staining I would coat a sample of the wood with epoxy, sand it and varnish it.  

Awlgrip paints make a varnish product call Alwood.  The brimer for Alwood come in two colors of tint, Amber and red.  Check out The product. Expensive but very good.  

I have  made two Kaholas from plans which were so enjoyable to build  that I bought material for a third.  I really never cared about the amount of time each step took because I was building for enjoyment.  When I built I tried to do my best with every detail like a golfer does with every stoke.  difference is I ended up with two nice boards and the golfer had a score cards to talk about.  So why rush enjoyment.  The Kahola is a small simple boat and no one step really takes that much time.  Laying out the frames from the patterns is really delightful.  It is a lot like making a model balsa  wood airplane wing but  larger.

You need only a minimum a hand tools to build from plans.

All the best for you.  Charlie Canby  catalina island..