My dad used to work off a barge in the North Sea. They had these long pipe segments stacked on deck and he described an X-week pause in work because of problems upstream that left a barge full of bored guys with access to welding equipment and raw materials.

The final product was apparently a 40 foot (if I remember right, it’s been years since I heard the story) pipe suspended by one end with a crane that had a steel plate with a tiny hole welded to the other end. An institutional-sized can of peaches fit the inside the pipe snugly most of the way down and a nicely tuned mixture of O2 & acetylene was introduced between it and the plate.

The hole was sealed, heat was applied, and the ad hoc cannon spoke.

Moral of the story: Don’t let a bunch of folks with know-how and materials get bored.