Cockpit tape and cloth is for the damage caused by the paddler's movememts.

It also fills up with water, mud, gravel,  and gear occasionaly.   Usually at the most unopportune times.

if the question you are asking is doubling fillet with three inch tape and six ounce cloth a bit overdone,, in my opinion, the answer could be yes.

that said, i looked at CLC's build guide (  have 4 old chesapeakes under my belt ) and the video https://www.clcboats.com/shoptips/building-stitch-and-glue-kayak/epoxy-gluing-stitch-and-glue-boatbuilding-video.html and while the guide is ambiguous, the demonstration on the video is not and it shows the cockpit glass going over the fillets/tape.

from an engineering standpoint, to the extent you will create a lot of stress (especially to the extent that you padddle over something hard)...it will have the most stress if the event happen in this region...so maybe making it a bit stronger here has some value.  

that said, i have other builds that are happy to only have the fillet and 6 oz cloth and they certainly are not falling apart.  fwiw, i tend to try not to bang my boats around to much, so i tend to go with lighter builds.  but it is equally valid to say i want something more bullet proof....and increase the layup accordingly.

clc folks and a quick call to them can probably let you know if your proposed approach is highly unrecommended.

h

If the 6 oz cloth is woven and the tape is biaxial, the 6 oz cloth is mainly for abrasion protection (as Grumpy points out), the tape is the primary strength of the joint and the fillet is there only to support the glass so that it does not exceed its minimum bend radius and peel away on application. Each component also shares some of the others' work.

As Howard points out, on well-treated lightweight boats you can get away without the tape and rely on the 6 oz cloth doing double duty, but for that you have to glass the interior of the boat 100% because the fillets by themselves are a bit low on tensile strength and more brittle than the wood and the glass..

Laszlo

I agree that you do not need tape in areas that will be covered with glass.  Keep in mind that the Chesapeake design is one of CLC's oldest.  On the newer designs like the Shearwaters and Petrel/Play S&G, tape is only used over filets where a layer of glass is not.  Pictures below are Shearwater Double.  No tape on the hull filets because the entire interior is glassed.  Tape is used on the undersoide of the deck because glass is not used.  I would suggest that you do use tape on the hull filtets in the forward and aft compartments of the Ch18 because those are not glassed.

Thanks for all of the input.  The is tape is woven not biaxial.  I'm leaning toward installing the tape.  The benefits of not installing the tape would be lighter weight(minimal), less work and most importanly to me, possibly a neater job withput the additional layer of glass.