true story, 1972, high school buddies and me go across back bay in a 12' sears game fisher with a sears one banger 7.5 air cooled outboard. We were trapping mink, and swamp rats. Running up a marsh I hit a old pier piling and sheared of to shear pin in the propeller. It is like 3:30, January !!35 degrees, miles from land and no ore or motor now. 3 of us in boat. Did a Mcgivaier, found a old board with a 16 penny nail, found a bottle, broke bottle used edge to saw off nail, removed prop, with wooden sticks and put piece of nail in where shear pin was. Idled back across sound arrived in the dark, cold thirty. Me buddies never went out trapping with me again .
Closer to the rip, Paddled a homemade canvas canoe across from North end of knotts island all the way to Cedar Island !!4-5 miles of open water. Hit pier on end of island and ripped 2 foot gash in bottom of canoe, It is like 6am in morning, we fish all day and figure one of us can paddle the canoe back, patch it, then return to get the other. So me brother paddles back, goes to store gets duck tape paddles back to get me, I am sitting under water cus to many bugs and it is 11pm at night and man is is dark and all kinds of stuff is swimming buy. He got me we paddled back and went back next weekend.