: 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
: (Arctic Tern). The break was relatively clean and at a 90 degree angle to
: the long axis of the deck. I was able to match the broken ends pretty
: cleanly and cut away the portions of tape that had delaminated at the
: break. There was one section about the size of a nickel where the top ply
: adhered to the tape and ripped out near the deck seam. That chunk of wood
: was not salvagable. on the outside, there are a couple of places where
: about 1/8 inch of the top plys tore out along the fracture line.

: After I stopped cussing myself out, I fitted the broken ends together as
: closely as possible and glassed three layers of 2 inch tape all across the
: fracture line (alternating two layers lengthwise and one layer across) As
: best as I can determine by eyeball I have maintained the original angle
: both vertically and horizontally along the deck seam and shear. On the
: outside, I plan to fill the torn out gap along the fracture with thickened
: epoxy then cover the area with a patch of 6 oz cloth prior to glassing the
: deck. That area near the bow does not seem to be a high stress area. Will
: these repairs be sufficiently strong or will I need to glass in some
: plywood reinforcements to the underside of the deck? I had planned to
: paint the hull and leave the deck bright so I'll have to think up a way to
: hide or minimumize the scar on the deck as best I can with paint or
: veneer.

: Does this sound workable or should I just go back to Pygmy for new deck
: panels and start over?

: Larry the Dope

First, did you put the tape on the inside or the outside of the deck? If it is on the outside you can eventually sand it all off to get a smooth hull line. If it is on the inside, then when you finish the deck, hopefully you will glass it, sandwiching the crack between layers of glass and resin.

When the deck is attached to the hull you will get a great deal of additional structural support. Think of a canoe. It is open on top, and braced with a few thwarts that keep water pressure on the outside of the boat from squeezing the boat together. On a kayak the deck serves both to keep water out, and as a replacement for the thwarts. In fact, on skin on frame kayaks you can easily see the deck beams are nothing more than bent thwarts, and the space between them is just fabric.

The point is, your cracked deck is not going to make your boat any weaker when it is finished. So, your objective is to make a neat repair. Any work you do under the deck will not be noticed. Any work done on the top should look like it was an intentional design element. You can turn this lemon into lemonade.

If this had happened to me, my first thought would be to put a plate of plywood under the deck to hold the pieces in their proper alignment. I'd probably need two pieces, about 6 inches wide -- one for the left side of the deck, and the other for the right side. I'd put glue on these and clamp them to the main part of the deck, then I would lay the tip of the deck on this and clamp it into the proper position.

The plywood plate could be any scrap, from 3mm to 6mm, or 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick. This provides a base that helps align the pieces of the deck. By providing a flat base for all the parts, the surface of the pieces will be even, too. With no dips to fill, or high spots to remove, this will save me sanding and finishing time later on. A couple layers of glass cloth might be a stronger patch in this area, but until they set up they are way too flexible to align things, so I'd need some alternate way to clamp things.

Once everything had hardened I would get out my router and cut right through the damaged area. if the crack was really ragged, I might make a groove 1/2 inch wide, or make several passes and make a groove that was over an inch wide.
the router would be adjusted so that the depth of the cut was just enough to cut through the original deck material and barely touch the plywood I had glued underneath. I would clamp on a stick to serve as a guide for the router, and make the width and angle of the cut match on both sides of the deck. Then I would get a piece of redwood, teak, walnut, oak, or some clear pine or poplar and rip a strip that was just the right size to fill the groove I had routed. I would look for something that had a strong contrasting color to the plywood deck. when this strip is glued in place it would look like an inlaid chevron, or maybe a racing stripe, and no one would know it was a repair and not a preplanned design element.

If I didn't have a router I would use a straight edge and a sharp utility knife to cut out the damaged area. it would be slow and require many passes with the knife to get through the plywood, but this would be neater than using a handsaw. In this case I would plan ahead when gluing the plywood plate under the deck, and not put any glue near the area that I would eventually remove. Then, once I had scored the plywood deep enough the damged parts would just fall out, leaving me a nice straight slot into which I could drop my inlay trim.

hope this helps.

PGJ