When PS Technical Editor Ralph Naranjo told me he was interested in doing a report on epoxy, I was thrilled. Ralph ran a boatyard for 10 years on Long Island Sound and is mad about glues and fibers and anything that has to do with building boats. I had one small concern: The project could spiral.
Occasionally, our testers end up like Alice, disappearing down the rabbit hole of product testing-probing this, analyzing that, until the situation becomes curiouser and curiouser and our tester drops off the map-no emails, no Christmas cards, no inappropriate Facebook posts. When our tester is finally located, the conversation goes something like this: “We’re shutting you down Dr. X, before someone gets hurt.”
It did not reach that stage with Ralph’s epoxy test, but nearly so. We got our report, but not until Ralph tested the epoxies to a fare-thee-well, built two watercraft, and destroyed more test panels than I care to count. While the dust and wreckage from testing has been mostly swept away, suspicious odors still linger in his basement lab.
We still have some long-term testing to do, Ralph explained. (With regard to glues, you can never learn too much.)
It could have been worse. It could have been me. Put simply: Epoxy and I don’t get along.
Somewhere in my office is an old U.S. passport that caused a great deal of grief when my wife and I were cruising. The photo depicts a dirty, wild-eyed primate. Long matted hair lies clumped near the ears and forehead. The name under the photo is mine, but the photo is not me. It is my cryptid twin: EpoxyMan.
Two years after posing for that photo, I tried to explain it to the head of security in Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia. While browsing a bookstore, he had pulled me aside, upon suspicion of something. He asked me to follow him and I did. He led me to a small, windowless room with a polished marble floor. It was empty except for a table at the opposite side of the room. On top of the table, I saw the duffel bag I’d dropped off at baggage check-in. Behind the bag stood two nervous airport security guards.
I instantly knew the reason for my detainment. Inside the duffel was an ACR RLB-23, an early model 406 EPIRB. About three-feet long, bright orange with a pointed cone-shaped top, it looks like something you’d fire out of an anti-tank rocket launcher.
The agent handed me a printout of the RLBs X-ray image in one hand, the notorious passport in the other. “Can you tell me about this photo?” he asked. He was American—immaculate haircut, sunglasses, black suit. I liked his suit. It did not shout CIA, only whispered.
“Oh boy, what a day that was,” I said. “I was fairing our rudder and having trouble getting the epoxy to cure—”
“I meant the other photo, the thing in the bag.”
“Of course.”
I told him that I was taking the EPIRB back to the U.S. for a factory-recommended battery replacement. In his eyes, I could see what was thinking: What kind of sucker pays $1,300 for an EPIRB that needs a $900 battery every five years?
He lobbed more questions. My replies prompted more amusement. Eventually, he grew bored. I was an idiot, perhaps, but no terrorist. I was free to go.
I have a new passport, now, with a bland photo, but it doesn’t make a difference. I’m still the guy who gets wanded three times before every flight. I have my own category on the travel watch list: a man who cannot be trusted with glue.
