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Did anyone make any sense of 6d? A rather tortuous clue, hope it’s worth it! I have an answer but no idea why.
‘—!’ - a tub explodes? i.e. boat caught at sea (notoriously) (6)

Lumen, I decided GOTCHA but it's fairly clonky!

Yes, that's all that fits, and it could go at the start of the clue '--!' but why?

It's a composite anagram, where the letters of GOTCHA + A TUB can be rearranged to form BOAT CAUGHT.

The reference of course is to the Sun newspaper's notorious headline following the sinking of the General Belgrano.

Thanks jacknatter, all clear now. Was it worth it? ! (To paraphrase slightly from the closely related song, 'Shipbuilding')

I'll leave the bigger question to the more-than-capable pen of Elvis C, but as far as this clue goes, nope. As our classics master used to say when a pupil had offered a wildly incorrect answer to a question, "Nice idea, but..."

Apologies Lumen - I should have simply concurred with you.