Can't say about commercial boats, but here are some thoughts about homebuilt kayaks.

Vacuum bagging uses dry fiber reinforcement in layers, relying on gravity and pressure gradient to wet out the reinforcement and compress the sandwich. Excess resin weeps through "bleeder" (impermeable plastic sheet with small holes or slits at regular spacing, inserted between the reinforcement and the vacuum source) and is discarded after curing.

A typical boatbuilding application of this method can be found at http://www.clc.tno.nl/projects/recent/boat_vac.html, where you can see that the time for filling the structure with resin is directly proportional to both the porosity and permeability of the core. Wood strips are very low in both those characteristics, so they make a very poor core material.

The other possible use for vacuum bagging is to hold the glass firmly against the wood core, enhancing wetout and reducing resin float (glass floating on top of the resin, adding weight without strength). The problem here is eliminating wrinkles, which is very difficult on a (relatively) small hull with complex curves. Experimenting on a small part will demonstrate this. I tried the method on paddle shafts, and gave up - it was far easier to eliminate the wrinkles by hand layup than it was to sand them off after bagging. I found it was not possible to eliminate the wrinkles on such a small part with so much curvature, but YMMV.

The materials for vacuum bagging are not terribly expensive, and are available at specialty resin shops and over the internet. In my area we can get them at Fiberlay. An ordinary shop vac provides enough suction for a boat-size layup or anything smaller. This method would be good for glass seats or Euro paddle blades, and if you experiment with it you may come up with other applications.