Homemade Raft Immediately Sinks Amateur British Sailors

We are not certain if this is a teambuilding exercise or what but we are 100-percent sure that these British gentlemen do not know how to build a raft. To be fair to these gentlemen we have seen the blue barrel raft made successfully before. We mean, a quick google search for “homemade raft” features several versions of the blue barrel raft. There are, we would argue, several differences between the working rafts and what these gents put together for their failure of a raft.

For one thing, most successful rafts have more of a platform for riders to sit or stand on. The raft in this video appears to only have the frame of a platform. Four of the five guys on the raft are attempting to sit on the wooden frame but they are also sitting on their barrels. The big problem they have without the platform is a terrible weight distribution. A platform while not completely stable would at least offer some more area for the men’s weight without as much worry about capsizing the raft. I don’t know if they ran out of wood or what, but they needed more.

You may have noticed this as well but toward the end of the clip when the guy in the middle of raft finally flips over and actually capsizes the raft it almost immediately comes apart. Perhaps their minimalist raft would have worked had they actually had a secure structure. To our eyes it appears that part of the reason they all fall in is because the raft is breaking apart at the seams. They definitely need more rope or bungie cords or something to glue this half-baked structure together. Could you build a more successful raft given similar amounts of materials?