Duct tape…it’s great, ain’t it?

Well, it’s great for a while. On a boat in saltwater, it’s good for about a week or two, and then you better remove it and replace it with something more permanent. Otherwise, it gets kinda yucky. It leaves sticky residue behind, and DANG but it can be difficult to remove that crud. If you leave it down for months, it gets even yuckier, very much like the image on the right:

Equal Weathering Exposure
3M Performance Duct Tape with clean removal	Typical duct tape with residue and degradation

But wait, what’s the product on the left? That’s 3M Performance Plus Duct Tape! THIS is duct tape for boaters! 3M makes two significant claims about this product:

• Removes cleanly for up to six months from most opaque surfaces, even after exposure to sunlight and temperature extremes.
• Stays on for up to one year without deterioration, even after baking in the sun and getting beaten in the rain.

All of a sudden, you can actually use duct tape to fix stuff on a boat! Not forever, but long enough. I’m using it for the first time to seal up the cutout for my foredeck hatch:

The hatch is leaking, so I removed the entire assembly, and I’ve secured the hatch (sans frame) in place with Performance Plus DuctTape. Now I’m waiting for the exposed balsa core to dry out completely before a re-bed the hatch frame into the deck. This super duct tape is just the ticket…I REALLY don’t want to have to clean duct tape residue off my foredeck!

Seriously, if this product works as advertised, there is now now reason to tolerate plain old duct tape. This stuff costs a bit more, but if it saves you the time and effort of cleaning up one single deteriorated duct tape mess, it’s worth the extra money. I got the 3″ wide roll, because that was all they had in stock when I stopped by Fisheries Supply. Having used it, though, I don’t think I’ll bother with 2″ rolls anymore, either. 3″ is the way to go.