Wow!!! Your stories are incredible! I must have lived a good life, cause I can't even think of a real FAIL story to tell; here's a story, none-the-less.
One evening, when my son was about 12 y/o, he asked me, "How do you fix a hole in a boat?" Of course, I went into a long explanation of different types of boats, materials they are made of, and how to repair, with different methods depending... I don't recall, if I asked him WHY?
So... this is back in the day before every child had his own cell phone, but I had given him a walkie-talkie with a 1/2 mile range.
One day I gave him a call and his response was...
"Dad can I call you right back?"
Sure... what's up?
"We are in the middle of the pond and
we are sinking!"
Well, I had "Spanky and the Gang" bring the canoe, they had found in the woods, home to my house for a proper examination. Geez I wish I had pictures of it to share.
it was scary! :shakehead:
It was fiberglass, with a one foot square hole in it, a 3/8th inch crack/split/separation about 6 feet long along the water-line, and another one foot square flap of fiberglass that was still attached to the canoe, by a 4 inch wide tang.
Duct tape... a "real man's tool" was the solution :fail: , well at least it was the solution that the kids tried. Apparently multiple times
I could just imagine the kids out in this canoe, with one or two paddling, and another bailing furiously
OK... so I put five of them to work, pulling off all the duct tape, and scraping and sanding the edges a bit. I made a trip to get a gallon of resin, and some fiberglass cloth. I like to think that it was a great learning experience for the kids, and I really enjoyed bringing it to them. :thumbsup: We made a pretty solid repair of it. It was water-tight, but UGLY! I chose not to paint it. The canoe was hideous looking, two or three different colors of paint, all peeling and with transparent patches. No one would dare steal it :nana:
So one day, my wife and I drove by the detention pond, and there were a few kids enjoying the canoe, as the sun was getting a little low in the sky. It just happened to be at the perfect angle to be shining right through that 6 foot long 3/8th inch patch at the water-line. For anyone who didn't know, that would be a scary sight... it looked like if the kids tipped the canoe an inch to the right, they would have an instant sink!
I bought life vests, and locked it to a tree with a combination lock so that only the older kids would be able to take it out, but after a couple of years, and liability concerns, the BOD of the development had it removed.