Bead and cove machining makes the strips fit edge to edge through some tricky bends, where they will not easily follow the identical curves without some means of 'locking' them together, edge to edge. It's not just the fit of the strips, its also that the cove side of the strip acts as a trough for the bead of glue as you apply it, and things can get pretty messy without it. The finished boat won't look as nice either. In general, I do not recommend cutting your own strips.
Precut strips are readily available from a number of sources.
However, IF you have access to suitable equipment AND you can get good wood at a good price, then it would make sense. If all the strips are usable and you make no mistakes, you could get away with 68, but I don't recommend trying to cut it so close. As for the choice of wood, Western Red Cedar is about the best, but many other species are also quite usable. Cedar is prized because of it's excellent strength, workability, grain, colour, weight, and rot resistance. I've even built a couple of canoes from Eastern White Cedar, which is generally not available in long lengths due to knots.