In case Nick is too busy :)

you show some sort of protective film covering the inside of the kayak, which you peeled off. What was that, and what purpose does it serve?

The film on the inside is just thin plastic sheet, the sort painters use to protect things while they paint. Nick varnishes the inside of the kayak while its still in two halves, and the film is to stop the epoxy getting on the varnish.

Also the inside of the kayak appears black. Was this painted?

Nick used carbon fibre on the underside of the deck around the cockpit, for extra strength and coolness :) the rest of the deck was ordinary fibreglass. He also used kevlar/carbon fibre cloth on the inside of the hull, again for extra strength.

I am trying the method suggested by one member of the forum where he rolls out the tape in advance, while the hull is open and tacks itinerary place with beads of hot glue. I was going to use a small cup on the end of a stick to pour a line of epoxy on top of the tape to saturate it and then and bush it in with a brush on the stick. Any reason you might advise against this instead of pre-saturating a roll and then rolling it out?

Personally I've never tried this method, but I don't see why it wouldn't work fine, and be a bit easier. One small problem could be that it would be a little weaker where the hot-glue spots are, and they would probably be visible, so I would recommend only using this at the very ends where you can't reach. To temporarily hold the tape nearer the middle, where you can reach, I would suggest using maskingtape, then peeling it off as you go.

You would need to be pretty confident the tape was well saturated, so this method might use a little more epoxy, adding a tiny bit of weight.

Just my 2 cents.

Justin