: If you are really on the ball you match the sheets up so the grain is similar
: and you probably won't even notice the joint

8 foot sheets here in the US too. I went to great pains to match my grain when building two boats simultaneously (my sole boat building project to date), and wouldn't ya know... the finest, most invisible joint of all somehow ended up INSIDE the hull. Doh! I still laugh and shake my head every time I look at it.

I found beveling scarf joints with a block plane to be a pleasant task, by the way. Nuthin' to it.

Cheers,
Kurt