- While Richard Hammond seems to be adapting to life as a castaway, his partner Tory Belleci is determined to get off the desert island they call home. When Tory spots a shipping lane ten miles out to sea, the duo decide to engineer some increasingly audacious aquatic machines to try and escape once and for all.
- Tory thinks he saw a boat on the horizon. Richard comes up and cant see any boat. Richard believes that Tory is imagining things now. Tory starts tracking the boats and says that every 3 days 2 ships sail by the island. They are next to a shipping lane. Tory is convinced they will be rescued if they reach the shipping lane. They need a raft. The shipping lane was not more than 10 miles away.
Richard wants to build a raft using driftwood. Tory thinks its a daft idea, and blames Richard's lack of boat knowledge for their current predicament in the first place. They agree to a boat build face-off. Richard only has driftwood knitted together with ropes. But Tory has plastic barrels full of air, under his raft, to keep him afloat. Tory's design works, Richard's raft is half afloat and half in the water. Richard claims he let Tory win on purpose. Tory scales up his design and adds a mast and a sail. They launch their boat, but neither of them know how to sail. The boat is stranded, but RIchard gets off and walks back to the beach. The mast breaks and the sail falls into the water. Next, Tory thinks of building a boat with something they can control, instead of a sail. Richard suggest to add a paddle oar to the raft. Richard takes 2 bicycles, cuts them off, ties them in tandem and attaches them to the raft. Each bike has 3 paddles attached to it at the bottom, which goes into the water. The front steering is attached to a rudder on the raft to give it direction. The rudder is attached to the front, since the paddles are attached to the back of the raft.
Richard calls is Bi-Sea-Cle. They put it out to sea, and at first it works great. But paddling requires just too much effort and the raft is not fast enough. 10 miles is very far away. The paddle raft required athletes to operate it. Tory was exhausted. After hours of pedaling, they were not even 1 mile away from the beach. Richard decides to go back home. Tory is desperate to get off the island and decides to come up with another plan. The guys are surviving off yucca.
Sail and manpower didn't work. Richard says they drop the idea of rafts. Tory wants to make a steam engine. He decides to use the boiler from the boat, to make a steam engine. They hook up the boiler to the boat engine used to reel in fishing lines. They add a pressure gauge to the boiler. If the boiler gets over-pressurized, it turns into a massive bomb. Amazingly, the complex design works. the engine is connected to a crankshaft, which starts spinning as steam goes through the engine. Tory is excited as he feels they will finally be off the island. They design a wooden paddle wheel to sit on the crankshaft. The paddle has to sit at the right height, else it creates drag when it pushes the water up on the back half of the cycle.
They assemble the steam boat and both Tory and Richard are proud of it. The steam boat works and soon the duo is out at sea. Richard starts getting bored and gets on Tory's nerves. They have supplies for 4 days. Tory makes a crude measuring device to check their speed. They reckon they are doing roughly 1 km per hour. Steam boats are slow. Plus Richard is getting on Tory's nerves. Tory allows him to feed the fire, if he keeps quiet. Tory asks Richard to check the gauge, so they don't over pressurize the boiler. Dont overfeed the fire. Tory goes for a sleep. Instead of putting 1 log in every 15 mins, Richard decides to put 4 logs in every hour, so he can relax for the rest of the hour. Soon, as Tory wakes up, he finds the pressure gauge maxed out. Tory jumps in the water, and Richard as to follow. But the boiler doesn't explode and the boat keeps on going without them.
As the boiler cools, the boat slows down and the duo gets back on it. Tory gets the boiler working again and they reach the shipping lanes. But there are no ships in sight. They wait. Its been 4 days. They have run out of food and water. Richard looks at Tory's data and its all garbage. Plus they don't have any wood to get back to the island.
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