Sometimes using an iron or a heatgun can help the wood fibres resume their normal shape (or nearer normal).

Could also try using boiling water or steam from your kettle, but test on a crushed off-cut first to ensure (i) it won't dicolour your wood, and (ii) it won't warp the wood...

Could cut a ahallow v-shaped scarf to remove the blemish and replace with a  piece cut from similar grain....

Not sure what the wood is, but could replace with a piece of knot-free stight grained Douglas Firor, if $$ is no object, Sitka Spruce.

Considering that the compression/crushing and stretching/tearing stresses on a boom are concentrated near the surface of the wood when it bends, I would replace the piece. If that's not an option, removing the damaged section and scarfing it back together will work. If this leaves your boom too short and you cannot find a repair piece that will match the grain, match the wood the best you can and add the repair piece to the end of the boom where the stresses of bending on dissimilar grain will be of less consequence. I would hate to be caught out with a weak boom if the wind really comes up .

First, check the plans to see if this particular spot ends up in the boom or gets cut off. If it is part of the boom, call CLC and ask them to send you another piece. The extra cost should be a small percentage of the total boat cost and small price to pay to avoid breaking a crucial part at sea. -Wes

I'm not familiar with the Passagemaker kit but if you have a couple of extra inches of boom stock to work with, the repair is straightforward. I can see severed grain in the picture and the compression looks pretty severe, most likely compromising the continuous grain underneath. This section needs to be cut out. Steaming might restore the shape but I don't think it will restore the integrity. Ditto for epoxy filler.

Make tapered parallel cuts on each side of the ding such that you can remove the ding and rejoin the stock with a scarf joint. Don't crosscut the piece in half first or you will lose length eqaul to the size of the scarf.  If you have enough stock, try to make 10:1 scarfs.

Holy smokes -- sounds like I really did a number on this piece. It's already cut to size, so there's no extra stock. The piece gets glued to a smaller piece to make a "T" shape ... so reinforcements are on the way, so to speak. And I had overestimated the size of the ding -- it's about an inch across.

But, as several of you point out, the damage is there, and the boom is not going to be as strong as it otherwise would have been, and this could cause serious annoyance out on the water at some point.

I'm going to talk to CLC and see what options / advice they offer.  Thanks very much for your input! I really do appreciate it.