Kat:

The cotton stuff in deckplanking is traditionally made of oakum and secured with liquid pitch, and is called caulking, but it seems easy enough to imagine it being called "corking" in a regional dialect.

Popping your cork also occurs when a bottle is left in the sun and heats up-if there's airspace inside it, or other gas--until the internal pressure exceeds the resitance of the cork's friction.

'Course I've had that happen to me sometimes, too! :><)

A