One October 4 many years ago some friends and I took a boat up the Mississippi. We managed to shear the shear pin in the motor. Naturally, we didn't have a spare. The prop and motor was okay, but it wouldn't go around and so we faced a five-mile paddle back using boards instead of something designed for rowing or paddling.

We managed to get onto a sandbar and found...pieces of welding rod!! Yay! They fit the slot for the shear pin like they were made for it, and we were able to motor back.

Unfortunately, my friend (whose father owned the boat) forgot to tell his father, who put the boat up for the winter.

Next Spring, about six or seven miles downstream from his launch site, Dad hit a log with the prop. The "shear pin," which should have been soft bronze and sheared and instead was a slug of welding rod and didn't, caused the transmission to pretty much reduce to junk.

Dad had to paddle upstream against a fairly brisk current with aforesaid boards to get back. Dad had been the Pacific in WW2 and when he mentioned it to his eldest son he did so with lots and lots of words he hadn't used since he left the Army.