It depends on the depth of the scratches. You will want to sand the whole boat in preparation to re-varnishing. This will clean up most of the surface scratches. Deeper scratches, down into the glass, may want more attention. You may want to scrape the scratch with the rounded corner of a scraper to remove the loose resin and varnish. Then paint on some fresh epoxy into the scratches. Sand this lightly and then re-varnish.

My goal is generally to make the boat serviceable, and to stop any damage from expanding, not to get the boat looking like new. To this end, I do not over-do the repair work. While a more thorough repair job may be cosmetically better, and possibly structurally better in the long run, I personally don't feel an intense rehabilitation effort is worth it.

> I've been using my Guillemot Expedition Single for over a year now. It's
> time now, actually over due, for a little maintenance. I need to repair
> scratches and revarnish the entire kayak.

> To best repair the scratches, should I sand down the entire kayak, or only
> the areas around the scratches? How deep should I sand? How will I know
> when I've gone deep enough?