Not a direct response to Hank's post, but another $0.02 I thought I'd add:

I'm on my first stripper and made one grievous error in sanding. I used the fairing board with 80-grit to fair the hull, and did my sanding across the strips, not only along them. I thought that this was they way it was to be done a' la the picture in Nick's book of the fairing board being rocked while sanding. After many hours with 80- and 100-grit in the orbital sander, I thought I'd gotten rid of all the cross-strip scratches, only to find entirely too many of them still there after 'glassing. Next time I think I'll wet out with water to look for scratches, because the alcohol just didn't last long enough and cover well enough to show the scratches. On the positive side, most of these scratches are on the hull -- I paid closer attention to the deck.

Moral of the story: next time I'm going to only sand WITH the direction of the strips...

Dean