Raft (Swiss Family Robinson)

The Raft was a small boat that served as a means of transportation for the Robinson family to sail from their ship to the shore of a deserted island in Swiss Family Robinson. It was built by the family using wood from the ship itself since their ship got stuck on the rocks one stormy night.

In the film
The Robinson family: Father, Mother, Fritz, Ernst, and Francis built this raft using wood from their ship since it got stuck on the rocks one stormy night after being chased by pirates and used it to sail from the ship to the shore of a deserted island along with some provisions they might need to surive on the island. At first, Father was reluctant to take some of the animals still aboard the ship with them including Captain Wilhelm's former dogs: Duke and Turk since he thought they were too heavy for them. However, when the dogs began to follow the family sailing on the raft while swimming on strong tide, Father finally came to his senses and rescued them from drowning; gladly, they didn't sink their raft as he feared they would. The next morning, Father, Fritz, and Ernst used their raft to return back to the ship so as to bring the rest of the animals back to shore. During their return to shore, Father, Fritz, and Ernst used their guns stored in their raft to shoot and ward off some sharks trying to attack the animals. After the battle, they noticed a sea turtle swimming by and Ernst, using his head, tied a rope attached to the raft to the turtle, thus, allowing the turtle to help them pull and swim faster since the animals proved a bit difficult to pull at first while sailing back to shore even before the shark attacks. For weeks (or months), the raft was used by the men of the family to bring back everything else they needed from the ship to construct a tree house on the island. Then, after Fritz and Ernst rescued a girl named Roberta, disguised at first as a cabin boy named Bertie, from Kuala and his pirates, Father, Fritz, and Ernst used the raft to return to the ship so as to blow it up with gunpowder in order to avoid being found by the pirates.