The Thousands

I’ve never read Huckleberry Finn but I have seen The Simpsons episode that references it and I’ve wanted to set off on a rafting adventure with my friends ever since. It’d be great: nothing but a few planks of wood and the gentle river tide pulling us toward the great unknown. I pictured it turning out like The Adventures of Milo and Otis only without the mischievous orange cat or the haughty pug dog. We’d learn so much about ourselves along the way and maybe we could find a friendly bush creature to be our mascot. Who knows what marvels await behind the river’s bend!

First things first though, we needed a raft. With very little money or nautical experience between us this is what we came up with. To our surprise it was totally buoyant, sturdy and adventure-ready, which is what you want in a raft really.

To build a similar raft (perhaps even a superior one) you will need:

- HEAPS of polystyrene. Fruit shops usually have lots of empty boxes out back, if they say they don’t they’re lying and probably keeping it all for some kind of rival raft. Screw those guys! – At least 100 meters of rope (the cheaper the better).
- A big roll of sticky tape.
- A big knife for polystyrene cutting and general pirate activities.
- Wood. It helps if you can get your hands on a big old wooden crate so you don’t have to deal with nailing or sawing anything.

Step 1:
Find a big wooden crate (or something similar) and dismantle any bits of it that look unnecessary.

Step 2:
Transport your wooden crate to your raft construction zone. It helps if you have a trolley or, even better, a car.

Step 3:
Transport all the polystyrene you’ve hustled from fruit shops to your raft construction zone.

Step 4:
Cut up the polystyrene and bunch it up into flotation bricks with sticky tape and rope.

Step 5:
Wedge the bricks into your crate like a jigsaw puzzle and tie it all up (don’t worry about fancy knots, just keep tying more and more rope, quantity over quality.)

Step 6:
Very important step! Design and make a gnarly flag that will impress land lubbers. Make sure you do some mockups first.

Step 7:
You are now ready to sit on your raft and pretend that it floats.

Step 8:
Find an appropriate body of water on which to launch your raft.

Step 9:
Let the adventure begin!