I'm working on a skin-on-frame canoe of my own design, and I have a couple questions:

1) Stiffening the frame with some kind of roving/twine:
I'm probably going to use some kind of twine or roving to stiffen the frame the same way they do for the "aerolite" boats from Platt Monfort.
Those I know use kevlar roving, but I'm wondering if that's really necessary - I could use polyester twine as well (stretchier, not as strong, but a lot cheaper). I'm also wondering about the durability of the kevlar roving. I plan on polyurethaning the frame with exterior poly, would that give me extra toughness in the roving? Or be a bad idea for some unforeseen reason?

2) Dealing with skinning around the stems:
I recently skinned a kayak with polyester and due to my inexpert sewing technique ended up with a lot of pull holes. This wasn't a huge deal, I gooped them with clear sealant. There are no pull holes below the waterline because I didn't have to stich around the stems - I used Jeff Horton's (kudzu) technique of stitching from the center out towards the stems.

On the canoe however, the stems are too steep for me to be able to get away with just pulling up the fabric, and there will have to be some slitting/cutting/stitching/stapling/affixing around the stems. My impression is that on the aerolite boats, the stem fabric is just cut to fit and heat-taped to the stem, and then some kind of tape is applied to the outside of the stem.

Could I just staple the fabric to the stem and put a rub strip to hide the staples and protect the stem? Should I add some kind of fabric tape over the stem? I'm thinking: bias-cut a strip big enough, saturate it with polyurethane, and just plop it on the stem when I'm sealing the boat.

Thanks!