After much research and confusion (hours spent comparing two different types before realising they were just different names for the same thing!) I plumped for Gaboon ply as it is light, reasonably cheep and locally available. I could only get 8'x4' sheets though so much of this week has been spent scarfing them together into planks. My hands are now riddled with blisters from working with the plane cutting the 1:6 scarfs - about 3 hours for bottom and another 3 for garboard planks. Still have to do the strakes yet but I don't think I'll get to that stage for a while yet. On the plus side it has been my first encounter with epoxy and so far I'm finding it fairly easy to use - none of the time problems or accidental gluings that I was expecting.