Hey Max

Well, you're opening a can of worms there as we have advocates of both styles of building here. You will get some good advise from both camps, as applied toward the kayak/canoe building. But as you indicated, you have other projects in mind, so the table saw is, in my opinion the more versatile tool. Both tools can be adapted to various tasks by the aid of jigs and support tables and such, but if you are building anything that needs truely straight and smooth sides/edges, the table saw is the only way to go. Even in boat building ie; cutting strips and forms, you still get a rought surface and have to add other steps with other tools to smooth them out.
My .02 cents worth on this one....

Rehd