Jon,

I used Raka's 3.25oz tight weave on my last boat - open cockpit Eider from Shearwater - fun boat. I was concerned about weight because I wanted be able to throw it on the roof rack by myself. The 3.25 oz worked like a charm. The tight weave is a bit more difficult to wet out - but you will get the hang right away. I would highly recommend a sealer coat of epoxy on the wood before you glass. You can pretty much tell the parts where I glassed on wood vs. epoxy. I had problems getting the fabric saturated on the try wood sections.

The 3.25 oz takes very little epoxy to saturate and only 1 to 2 fill coats to get a level finish. The stuff appears to be extremely strong too. One day my brother, myself, and two dogs - probably close to 600lbs were paddling on a lake submerging her just about to the deck. We scraped over a submerged rock going about 6 knots and we had nothing but a scratch into the epoxy to show for it. I was pretty worried about strength since I built her out of Home Depot 1/8" Luan. But I put a layer of glass on both sides of the flat panels before stitching - then another layer inside and out and yet another on the bottom. She is light -