: . . . I am going to create an inlay that will look
: like a "feature". Of course that means I will have to
: do it on both sides, but that gives me practice on creating this
: type of enhancement if I want to do it in the future.

: I have a
: photo showing what I have in mind for the shape. I will probably
: use a slightly contrasting wood color instead of black.

Umm, can I persuade you NOT to consider this for a future "enhancement"? Then you won't need to practice on this repair.

Couple of things to think about. The big one is that you are putting too much "work" into your "woodworking".
You were donw with needing the plane a long time before you got the wood this thin. You don't have thick material to work on, so a light touch and you're done. People use planes because they remove stock a lot faster than sanding. On your next boat, take advantage of the time you've saved and get on to glassing, sooner.

To make the patched area disappear into the general construction, and to make fitting it easier, cut out your thin area along the glue line of your strips. Going with multiple, light and gentle strokes with the exacto knife, and using a straight edge as a guide, you can get through the strips in a few minutes. You can also drill a few holes and slip in a coarse hacksaw blade and use that to cut close to the glue line. Sand or use a knife, chisel or plane iron (take it out of the plane) to smooth the cut edge. You can use knife or coping saw to crosscut the strips. Leave a square edge and just do a butt joint when you fit in the replacement strips.

When fitting the replacement strips: if you have a hot-glue gun, glue a few scraps to the inside of the boat to support the new strips until the new glue hardens. Your replacement strips will probably be thicker than what you have, so don't plane them too thin, again.

If you make your repair 2 feet long or longer on the main strip, and stagger the joints by 6" to a foot on the adjoining strips it will look like new construction rather than a repair. You may need to go 3 to 5 strips wide to get back to an area which has wood which is sufficiently thick, but probably you can resolve this with just 2 strips.

It is not a difficult repair, but it can be time consuming--something like trying to fit in the last strip in a pattern. If your replacement strips can go in essentially full width and square then you'll spend less time fitting them.

There ia another option to consider: veneer. head over to the store and buy some edgebanding for plywood. See if you can get some which doesn't have glue on it. If not, then get out your clothes iron and use the stuff with hot-melt glue on it. Trim the edgebanding to the same width as the strip pattern on your boat. You can use a carpenter's utility knife, or your exacto knife. Lay a piece of veneer directly over the bad area, and let it extend a foot beyond the damages area. If you have a recess, you can fill it with some wood filler. Put another piece of veneer over the adjoining strips. Stagger the ends of the veneer by a foot, or close to that.

The veneer is thin--about 1/20th of an inch, plus the glue. Once the glue has set (if you use wood glue) or cooled (if you use the hot-melt glue) you can gently sand the ends and edges of the veneer to blend them into the height of the adjoining wood.

You can make a thicker veneer yourself by carefully resawing a strip. Try to get it about 1/16th thick, and apply it with the flat side agains the hull and the rought side up, where you can sand or plane it smooth after the glue sets.

With a veneer fix you maintain the looks of solid wood, but this area of the boat is thinner than it should be. When you glass it, put on a patch over this area to beef it up. An oval patch about 18" long by 6" wide should do. cut it in advance from some scrap, and slap it on immediately before covering the area with the rest of the hull's glass.

Good luck on this.

PGJ