Cockpit aside, you want a hull that is going to work well for you. I paddled a Point Bennett only briefly and I don't know which version it was (probably the 17.5 or 18). Maybe I was too heavy for it (190 lbs.) or maybe the guy didn't build it correctly, but I really hated the thing - I found it to have very low primary stability and little or no additional secondary stability when edged (and this was sitting right on the bottom of the boat). It had a very boxy cross section with chines that extended well out towards the ends and while it seemed relatively fast, the handling was not at all to my liking - stiff and awkward. Now I'm not a big fan of boxy hard chined boats in general, but I can't think of another boat that offended my sense of how a kayak ought to behave more than the Point Bennett did (the guy who built the one that I tried didn't seem to like it much either). Duane Strosaker is an accomplished paddler and boat builder and there seem to be plenty of people out there that like the Point Bennett. Maybe the one I tried was indeed screwed up in some significant way - and apologies if that's the case, but it "looked" like the pictures I've seen. It's possible that this might the right boat for you (different strokes for different folks and all), but I would seek one out to try before you go about building it. There are very few kayak designs that I can't say anything positive about, but this was one of them. The Meet At The Beach is coming up soon (see the events calendar) and there will be lots of wooden boat designs to try out (CLC will be there with a bunch). It was at a Meet At The Beach that I tried the Point Bennett.