OP here.
I finished reading through this guy's build (
>>175086). Ultimately he seems to have failed. I think that he learned a lot of lessons, but after reading his experience I was about ready to just give up on the idea and buy a boat.
But, this guy
>>175139 has pictures and brief descriptions of several pretty nice looking boats that he has built.
I've found a local supplier (Toronto) for mostly all of the materials I'll need and am going to stick with this.
Kevlar:
http://www.noahsmarine.com/index.asp?FSCat=41 