Note from Trish: Newer Nuts & Boats subscribers may not yet have "met" Skip, my skipper/husband. He is a periodic contributor of his view of life on the water. This article, I believe, served as a catharsis, and should be recognizable by any DIY boat owner.

I think it's about time for one of Skip's patented rants.  Most of these rants are intended for private consumption (and Trish is my favorite consumer, as she can readily attest).  My usual targets include rude power boaters and the devious marketing techniques of the big pharmaceutical companies.  But that's another story.  This rant, I think, has such universal appeal to boaters that I feel compelled to share it with “Nuts & Boats” readers.

First some background:  I'm a slob and a neatnik.  Which trait is dominant depends on the potential consequences.  For example, my car is a veritable rolling dumpster.  Empty diet coke cans, receipts, junk mail, used beach towels, and other assorted flotsam litter the floors and back seat.  But it's of no functional consequence; the car runs perfectly well full of junk. 

With my boat tools I'm fastidious. Wrenches get wiped down and lovingly massaged with WD-40 before being tucked away.  Any rust gets obliterated with a stainless steel brush and bronze wool pad.  And when I use and put away a tube of Lifecaulk or 5200 or silicone sealant, the threads get meticulously cleansed of any residue (ditto for the cap), and after squeezing a little of the goop into a paper towel, the cap gets firmly snugged down.  I keep all my tubes of goop in a plastic organizer stored away in a dry locker. When I have need of a particular tube, I expect (or at least I used to) reliable performance from it.  After all, I carefully put it to rest. 

OK, now the rant.  You knew I'd get there eventually.

Last weekend I did a boat project involving removing some hardware from the boom, moving other fittings, and adding some new ones.  The result was about a half dozen holes in the boom that needed to be plugged.  So I got out my tray of sealants, epoxies, and assorted goops.  Aha, white 3M 5200...perfect.  I removed the cap and squeezed the tube. Nada.   So I got an awl and poked thru the hardened goop plugging the neck.  It looked like I had bored through to viable, usable goop.  I withdrew the awl and squeezed again.  Nada.  Next I got out a small phillips screwdriver and made a larger channel.  I reamed and wiggled the screwdriver about and, thought, surely that will do the trick.  More squeezing; forceful, insistent, serious squeezing. Nada. 

Now I was getting pissed off.  I had only used a small fraction of that tube, and that was not even six months ago.  I got out a larger phillips, about the same diameter as the bore of the tube's neck.  I poked and reamed and wiggled some more while I squeezed the tube.  Visual inspection revealed a large, apparently deep channel. Surely now success is near.  I virtually stood on the tube and still: NADA.  Now I was really seriously pissed off. 

I've experienced catastrophic seam failure with past goop tube debacles, so I tempered my anger and decided not to jump up and down on the tube.  As a last resort, sensible maneuver, I took the awl and lanced the belly of the damned tube like a festering boil.  Out came viable, usable normal creamy white 5200...paydirt.  I squeezed some into a paper cup and went topside to plug the holes.  That done, I eyed the results of what should have been a simple, clean task: an awl and two screwdrivers coated with 5200, more of the goop on the galley tile, and more of it streaked through my shirt and on my hands.  And the now-useless, nearly-full tube of 5200, which I tossed into the trash with a look of contempt and some really choice cuss words. 

In the past, I have had similar unhappy encounters with goop tubes of various types.  Nothing in the way of preventive measures or extraction techniques seem to work.  And those tubes of goop aren't cheap (as is anything labelled "marine"), and the smallest tube seems to be about the size of a large tube of toothpaste.  So let's say I buy a 5 oz. tube of 5200 for $7.95.  And say I use it twice (as in the example just described), consuming about one ounce before throwing it away in disgust (as in my example).  My net cost for the 5200 factors out to be $7.95 for one measly stinking ounce of the stuff.  So...why don't they market small, single-use tubes of their product, say 1-1/2 oz., for $1.95?  I would love that, and I'd buy bunches of it, to be left sealed and intended for just one use.  But that makes way too much sense to realistically expect that it would ever happen. 

In my most dark, paranoid, cynical moments, I suspect a nefarious profitable joke perpetrated on the boating community (kind of like those Enron managers caught joking on tape about reaming the California energy consumers) by the monolithic marine goop manufacturers.

Well, thanks for listening.  I feel better now.  Gotta go.