Top products from r/buildaboat

For stitch and glue, you need some glass tape (or strips cut from glass cloth) and unthickened epoxy. The epoxy is the glue, the tape provides the strength and spreads the load over more than just the edge of the plywood.

Colliodal Silica is a cheap filler that turns (normally runny) epoxy into a paste, for use as a wood glue. It's really nice to have a glue where you can control the viscosity for the joint.

Finely milled glass strands is a filler that makes strong fillets, for less critical joints where you're not using tape.

Micro balloons are tiny glass balls that make epoxy into a low-viscosity paste that's excellent for smoothing (fairing) over glass cloth, if you don't want the texture showing when you paint. It is easy to smooth with a plastic spreader and sands easily.

All these fillers are super light, don't make my mistake and buy a 1kg bag to go with 5kg of epoxy! A 100g bag will probably be more than enough for your boat.

I highly recommend Epoxy Basics: Working with Epoxy Cleanly & Efficiently by Russell Brown. It will pay for itself by making your epoxy go further and saving you time.

Oh, and the best tool I bought was some plastic spreaders that look a bit like credit cards, 10 for £1. I cut notches in one, rounded corners on another, etc. I wipe them clean at the end of the job and keep using them until they get too scuffed. (a big roll of paper towels is also essential)

If you like to sail in windy and rough conditions you should really think about a multihull, IMO. In addition to the cats and tris above, you might give Gary Dierking's book a look:

http://www.amazon.com/Building-Outrigger-Sailing-Canoes-Construction/dp/0071487913

Fast, capable, pretty, and not complex to build. Anything in that book would sail circles around a Scamp or the CLC Pocketship. And if you want to camp out you have a tramp or platform to sleep on, that's actually really comfortable.

Good luck!

If you want an good first project that incorporates several building techniques that are used in boat-building but not-so-common in traditional construction, check out either the 6 hour canoe (amazon) of the Bevin's Skiff (asf.org). Both boats are great in the water, use very similar build techniques, and don't require many tools.

BTW, what is your current tool inventory? The Bevin's Skiff can be bought as a kit that requires only basic tools, yet provides more boat-building techniques than a stitch and glue boat.