If one does not want to waste wood that could be used if not chopped into little pieces or burned in order to hollow out a log for a boat then planks would seem the way to go and a solution tried in Britain with sewn-plank boats.

Existing examples such as the Dover and the Ferriby Bronze Age Boats are built with heavy planks and their being over fiifty feet in length suggests that this was the solution chosen to deal with the problem of building a skin covered boat as long. Of course two separate traditions might have existed in Britain and if this were so then we might expect the possibility of finding smaller sewn-plank boats or canoes.