Rich

I applied way too much galss on the inside and outside of my first stripper at it got up to 50 pounds, my 2-4 yaks got progressively lighter with the intelligent and considered application of various weight glass and using CF since I got a roll of it for a B-day present.
My thoughts are that some cloth goes on every surface, it's the thickness and careful application of epoxy that keeps the weight down. That said another consideration is where you're going to paddle and conditions you expect. On the deck there's some serious stresses placed on the area from getting in and out of it, and doing a combat scramble, lifting and crayying the yak with a load inside (100 pounds of gear and carried fore and aft to the water will really stress the hull). Strapping ayak down on the craddles puts a localized strain that is hard on the yak...and it's far worse when it's applied over time on a hot day...like driving around on vacation.
I'm going to share briefly an event that occured to me on 31 May 2002 begginning at 15:23:22 PT. I and kayak was lifted and dropped essentially sideway off a wave that was measured at a wave station about 3 miles away at around 15 feet. All my deck fittings stripped out, my battery for the pump broke out of it's cradle in the rear and wedged solid in the very stern. The second wave stuck me and kayak into the bottom where I crunched 3 inches of the bow, myself, I slid forard and into the cockpit where my right foot broke the Sealine rudder pedal off, breaking several bones in my foot. That wave was around 17 feet. I'm lucky I'm alive, but aside form that, all that extra glass kept the kayak togther without any failures aside from "printing" induced from the tremendous stresses (the original post is somewhere in the KBBB in the early part of June 2002). The point is that the excessive glass kept the yak togther where most store-bought glass yaks would have been busted to some degree, and damn sure they would have split a seam at a minimum. Rikki had a kevlar Looksha 3 that was broken into a twisted mangle by a wave that was half that size. So, if rough water or the big-waves-out-of-nowhere conditions are expected, I'd highly encourage more glass, and if anywhere, put it on the inside of both deck and hull and a light glass like 3 oz on the outside deck. Make that cockpit area inside strong. No more then two layer on the outside of the hull. Then again, if it's lakes and calm rivers, and you have better luck then I, then go lighter. It's a tough series of decisions.
I hope this babble of mine helped.