Tinkering and Repairs

Ships are bound to take damage on the Grand Line. This is not an excuse to damage it yourself.

Usopp loved Luffy and he loved Laboon (he was a man's man, er, whale), but was it really necessary for Luffy to rip off Merry's mast to get the whale's attention?

Having a Shipwright is not an excuse to get careless with your treatment of the ship, it's a reason to be terrified of putting so much as a scratch on it.

Usopp was glad that they finally had a shipwright, even if it wasn't in time to keep Merry going (though it may not have mattered anyways). Sunny was a fine successor and plenty durable, so Usopp expected that they'd go far on this ship… especially when Franky would take any damage rendered to his masterpiece out of the offender's hide.

There is always room for a handyman because there's always something that needs a little fixing.

Franky took good care of the Sunny, there was no denying that, but Usopp tended to be the one who fixed the little things: a squeaky door here, a leaky faucet there. Just the little things that took a little know how. He'd been the one handling it on the Merry and it seemed a bit rude to foist it all on Franky when he had the bigger things to worry about.

Inventive genius is all well and good, until something blows up.

One of the reasons Usopp loved having Franky around was that the older man understood his inventive streaks and had ones even more brilliant than the sniper's. When the two of them got together on a project it was amazing… until something blew up and Nami bit their heads off about it.

Tinkering is best done away from distractions, or there will be explosions (and not the fun kind).

Usopp's trick shots (and his tricks in general) required some tinkering and messing around with volatile chemicals. After all, sometimes the desired effect was an explosion. The problem was that either Usopp would end up too focused on his work or Luffy pulled stealth skills out of somewhere and well… there would be explosions (and not the fun kind).