: When I refinish the boat again next time is there any way to get this scratch
: to vanish short of sanding the glass down to wood and patching?

I don't think so. Now that you have put on a coat of varnish, and gotten this varnish into the bottom of the scratch, you'll have to sand at least that deep to remove this varnish. Then you can either put on a patch of glass cloth and resin, or just a coat or two of resin.

Whether you need to patch depends on whether the damage, or the attempted repairs, caused you to go significantly into that layer of glass cloth. If you have effectively cut through the original cloth, then a patch would suggested for the strength it would add. When faired and sanded the patch should be invisible, and the scratch should be gone.

If we had caught you before you revarnished: you might have tried using just a few drops of epoxy resin to fill the scratch. it is thicker than varnish. A couple of drops put on with an eyedropper, or allowed to trickle of the end of the mixing stick should have done the trick. You would want to do this a couple of times to get the added epoxy to end up slightly above the level of the rest. then sand down the repair to make things smooth, and varnish.

PGJ

If the boat is not leaking, you might want to wait until you have a few scratches to repair. Until then think of this as a battle scar, and display it proudly.

hope this helps

Paul g. Jacobson