On my Wee Lassie II, I was forced to use a cabinet scraper to get a fair surface. This really brought-out some wonderful grain patterns that would not have been visible had I been able to sand a fair surface. And since scraping doesn't burnish the surface, but slices the wood cells, I'm pretty certain I got adequate epoxy penetration. (That's my hope, at least. I may be unpleasantly surprised down the road).

From my infernal photo collection, here's a shot of the hull of the WLII with right half sanded, left half scraped. The difference is pretty dramatic. I'm not suggesting that scraping is the best way to go. In my case, I had no alternative. But it did have this added benefit.