Getting Started

There's a surprising amount of planning involved before the actual work can begin. First off, the garage had to be cleaned out (no small task), tools inventoried, a set of saw-horses built...

Tools:
Here's a list of tools I've found extremely useful so far:
--ratchet screwdriver
--Japanese pull saw
--wood chisels and rasps
--large and small T-square
--level
--hand planers
--clamps, at least a dozen
--strong work light
--cordless drill
--random orbital sander
I realized I'd need a portable planer as well, so after some research I went with the RIGID 13" thickness planer from Home Depot. You can buy an accessory stand to fit, but given my limited work space, I wanted something more portable--so I built a small table for it with swivel wheels so it could be moved out of the way easily. So far, it's performed superbly.

Materials:
The plans give a rough list of materials, so step 0 was to find out the nearest lumber supplier for the type of wood needed. I ended up getting the 6 and 9 mm marine-grade plywood and Mas Epoxy from Chesapeake Light Craft in Annapolis. The hardwood choice was a little more difficult--weight, rot-resistance, ability to bond with epoxy, cost, workability, availability all have to be weighed. Any choice is a compromise, and in the end I decided to use African Mahogany (also known as Utile). I also needed Douglas Fir, and I was able to get both from Vienna Hardwoods, about 8 miles away, though the fir had to be ordered.
In the UK, there is a company called Jordan Boats that will create a kit of custom plywood panels based on a given set of design drawings, saving many tedious hours of lofting, jigsawing, and planing...but unfortunately, at the time, they only delivered to the UK and Europe, and I was not able to find a similar service here in the States...so, the panels had to be cut out by hand.

Getting Started...Finally
The first step is to draw out the panel shapes onto the plywood using a table of offsets along parallel station lines drawn at fixed intervals along the 8' length. Once the points on the station lines are marked, they are joined in a smooth curve using a flexible guide held in place with weights (I used a long strip of balsa wood, scarfed together from two pieces). [The process is akin to curve fitting using splines, for any engineers reading this]. There were 6 side panels, a bottom panel, 4 frames, fore and aft girders, and the centerboard case to be cut out, so alot of time spent on all fours marking out the lines. Once all the outlines were drawn, they are cut out roughly with a jigsaw, then planed down to the line using a hand planer. For any panels having a mate, the two are clamped together and planed down to the line drawn on just the one panel.
The side panels are longer than 8', so they have to be scarfed together from two pieces. This involves making the panel pieces 50 cm longer than the design length, planing the extra length into a wedge-shape, and then overlapping the planed parts to create a smooth joint. (A "butt joint" can also be used, but not being smooth, it looked like it might cause difficulties when fitting the bottom panel to the centerboard case). In order to line up the two panels to be scarfed, I drew "center lines" along the length of each panel, measured from the plywood sheet edge before starting to cut anything out. Before gluing the scarf joint, the two panels could then be accurately lined up using their center lines and a length of kite string stretched tightly along the line.