I've built a kayak from Oneocean Kayaks, the plans were excellent as were the instructions in the manual and the online builders pages at the website.
http://www.oneoceankayaks.com/ It was the amount of detail on the website that sold me on buying Vaclav's plans. The manual will get you a finished kayak and the web pages provide all those little tricks to make it a lot easier.
I think the most important thing is having the cedar strips well prepared - uniform thickness and the bead and coves spot on. The more time spent on the wood quality the less time spent on sanding and fairing. Get a range of widths of strips - 1/2' bend really easily which is great for along the shear line, wider strips as the hull flattens out. Get a good random orbital sander for fairing the wood. And an electric stapler - I used a hand stapler for the hull and suffered from strip movement and a few loose fits which only showed up when I sanded the hull. The deck I used an electric stapler and it was so much easier to hold everything tight and to form.
Epoxy and a squeegee gives a good surface finish, I'm going to try vacuum bagging the hull of the kayak I have on the mould now to see if that gives a better finish. If it does I shall give the deck a go.
I guess the main advantage of the strip design is the hull shape - you'd never get a fibreglass kayak out of a mould with all the compound curves and 'sharp' edges you can put on a stripper.
The other thing I like about it is that wherever I go I get a compliment about the kayak - even if once some tosser said he liked my 'plywood boat' - he nearly had a paddle fitted up him!!
