I've never blow up a shoe, but I had one fall off once through no fault of my own. The doehead mechanic back at the lodge didn't torque the bolts properly. I was *WAY* below camp on the middle fork of the Goodnews in AK, on plane when I seemingly just lost power. I had a guide buddy with me and we rowed over to the shore, lifted the motor and thought WTF??? After looking around we could see it out in mid-channel in about 8 feet of water because it was painted bright red. We drug the boat upstream, floated down over it and dropped the anchor, and were able to snag it off the bottom with a Pixie spoon. I had an Alen wrench and spare bolts in my guide pack and bolted it back on. What could have been real Badnews on the Goodnews was averted.