We all bring our own history of experience and expectations to the mix of boat building.

There is the cheap gang which want to build from pallets. There is the fast gang who hold up their stop watches with pride. There are the first timers who are happy it floats and the old timers who reach for perfection. And many more and all mixed together!

The more clearly you define your goals and wishes the easier the answers will come to you.

The first answer is to stop kicking it around in your head and play with materials with your hands.

There is no way to understand what different materials, will, and will not do, without the experience of working with them. Don't believe the claims of others. Find out for yourself.

The unique natural properties of wood have evolved over thousands of years and wood has been used for thousands of years to build boats.

For centuries boat builders have used a "batten", a thin flexible strip of wood, to draw curved lines for boats. Battens are made of a clear, (knot or defect free) straight grained wood. A batten will form a perfect "fair" line when bent. A fair line is without bumps or dips, a smooth flowing curve. Boat builders try to build boat hulls which are "fair", so water will flow smoothly over the surface allowing the boat to travel as fast as possible. Somewhere in time a boat builder realized they could build a boat using a bunch of "battens" to create a fair hull, and strip building became a new boat building technique.

The beauty, the genius, of the strip building method is that IF the wood strips remain in contact with the stations & stems, AND the edge of each new strip is aligned and glued to the previous strip, the resulting surface IS FAIR and perfect.
THE RESULTING SURFACE IS FAIR AND PERFECT!

The above is an except from - http://www.laughingloon.com/shop.tips.html

Plywood, aluminum and all fiberglass boat construction methods have tired to totally replace wood but cannot equal it's many qualities which make it so appealing.

Second hand boats are a cheap easy and fast way to get on the water while you ponder the fun of being the new Edison of boatbuilding.