# Rafting MacGyver - stories from the repair kit



## jamesthomas (Sep 12, 2010)

Ok, I’ll play. My tent has one of those “hubs” that the poles plug into that suspends the tent. One of my tent poles split where it plugs into the hub thus making the tent worthless. Cut a strip off of a beer can and wrapped the split end and secured with a strip of gorilla tape. Got me home.


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## seantana (Mar 5, 2015)

Not mine, but I'm pretty sure this sets the bar: Hillbilly engineering saves the day!


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## TennesseeMatt (Jul 21, 2005)

I vote for oarlock cast from beer cans too.


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## Rightoarleft (Feb 5, 2021)

We broke an oar tower in Brown Betty. It was a home jobber conduit frame. Being the first rapid in Cataract canyon, and being spring runoff at 33k, we were pretty motivated to get it repaired. I scoured the driftwood pile in the eddy and came back with various lumber and hardware (bolts, nails, hinges, typical flash flood debris from farmer bob's pumphouse). We split and cut and shaped boards with river knives, wrapped splints with straps and utilized one well placed nail. Viola! Back in action. 

I think that may have also been the boat we flipped and lost until the next day where a motor rig fetched it and parked it on a beach. Hard to say. I was a brand new oarsman. My memories are overshadowed by the terror of running the Big Drops.


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## jamesthomas (Sep 12, 2010)

Yeah, the big drops at 30 k will definitely get your attention.


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## Will Amette (Jan 28, 2017)

I had nothing to do with this other than being on the trip.

Grand Canyon 2006. First couple of days, an oar tower just collapsed. Probably had been damaged on a previous trip or in transit in a stack of boats. We got a call out on the sat phone. One tower was coming down to Phantom by mail, so we just had to drag our feet a bit. Another was going to get hiked in by some USGS folks who were hiking in at Phantom to join a science trip. We knew we'd get at least ONE. In the meantime, we had to find a way to limp down.

Oarsman took a hammer and beat the thing back into a general shape that looked like an oar tower. Oarsman took a sand stake and cut it to fit with a hacksaw. Oarsman took a hand drill and drilled a couple holes through the sand stake and the damaged tower. After it was dry fit together, it got epoxied and bolted together. Better than new. When we got to Phantom, we picked up the spare towers but never installed them.

I now keep a hand drill in my repair kit.


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## Bootboy (Aug 25, 2020)

Done some pretty sketchy stuff to escape while climbing after dropping or breaking something. Luckily, I’ve never had to do anything drastic while boating.


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## jgrebe (Jan 16, 2010)

Here's one for consideration. We were on the Green in early November. Getting pretty chilly. Our propane regulator bit the dust and wouldn't put out any propane. We cut the regulator off but 100 psi propane is not easy to cook with LOL. We had a thwart for a dory (to roll it up out of the water for repairs if needed) so decided to jerry rig the air pump fill hose to the propane tank output. Filled the thwart with propane in about 4 seconds. Reconnected the fill hose to the stove and now we had low pressure propane. After the pressure started burning off in the thwart we regulated the flow/pressure to the stove by sitting on the thwart. Worked pretty damn good. We could get a whole meal with one thwart full of propane. These days the excess flow valve on the tank might make that hard to do but could probably find a way to defeat that if needed


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## cupido76 (May 22, 2009)

jamesthomas said:


> Ok, I’ll play. My tent has one of those “hubs” that the poles plug into that suspends the tent. One of my tent poles split where it plugs into the hub thus making the tent worthless. Cut a strip off of a beer can and wrapped the split end and secured with a strip of gorilla tape. Got me home.


My gut reply was "duct tape"... but you're right... gorilla tape is the answer. That shit is amazing.


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## cupido76 (May 22, 2009)

jgrebe said:


> Here's one for consideration. We were on the Green in early November. Getting pretty chilly. Our propane regulator bit the dust and wouldn't put out any propane. We cut the regulator off but 100 psi propane is not easy to cook with LOL. We had a thwart for a dory (to roll it up out of the water for repairs if needed) so decided to jerry rig the air pump fill hose to the propane tank output. Filled the thwart with propane in about 4 seconds. Reconnected the fill hose to the stove and now we had low pressure propane. After the pressure started burning off in the thwart we regulated the flow/pressure to the stove by sitting on the thwart. Worked pretty damn good. We could get a whole meal with one thwart full of propane. These days the excess flow valve on the tank might make that hard to do but could probably find a way to defeat that if needed


That doesn't sound like a "regulator".

I'm glad you're still with us.


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## tBatt (May 18, 2020)

Also not mine, but an impressive story of making a motor water pump out of a beer can, glue, and gorilla tape.









Motor Rigs - What spare parts do you carry?


I'm not a motor boater yet but I've been looking into it. Most searches have lead to Pornhub instead of here so I though I'd ask the collective - What spares do you carry? I likely don't see one in the near future but a ~6hp four stoke seems like a good addition down the road. Prop, spark plugs...




www.mountainbuzz.com


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