: Last night, in an act of abject stupidity, I closed the garage door and broke
: 18 inches off the front of my assembled, taped but not glassed deck panels

Larry,

Ouch! Having little clearance in my garage, what you did was always one of my worst fears.

If it were me, I would think about grinding the top surface flat (fair) in order to apply a decorative veneer to hide the break zone. With the veneer above and the repair tape on the underside, the panels will be plenty strong. The drawback to veneer riding on the top surface instead of inlaid is that the transition will show a step once the boat is varnished. But most people will be drooling with admiration all over your boat and never notice.

As Shawn mentioned, I inlaid contrasting wood in my deck panels. This was done before the panels were assembled so that I could work with flat material. See the picture below to see how the process turned out. Removing the surface layer for inlay replacement at this stage would be more difficult, but still doable if you are patient and willing. The glue layers in the plywood give a pretty good guide on how deep to cut. Providing the gluing pressure for the veneer pieces on this curved surface could be tricky, and I'm not sure how I would approach this just yet. Maybe some kind of sand mold or a vacuum set up would do it.

By the way, purple heart is a good veneer with lots of strength and a nice color contrast if you decide to go that route. Good luck.

Ted