The world record for the largest continuously poured concrete raft was achieved in August 2007 in Abu Dhabi by contracting firm Al Habtoor-CCC Joint Venture and the concrete supplier is Unibeton Ready Mix

The survivors of the sinking of the French ship Méduse in 1816 resorted to cannibalism after four days adrift on a raft and their plight was made famous by Théodore Géricault's painting Raft of the Medusa.

Later, stranded on a makeshift raft, Odysseus was swept back through the strait to face Scylla and Charybdis again.

On the next outflow of water, his raft was expelled, and Odysseus was able to recover it and paddle away to safety.

Bush waited for four hours in an inflated raft, while several fighters circled protectively overhead until he was rescued by the lifeguard submarine.

Even the Chinese Junk was built on these concepts, being a derivative of the ancient cargo raft.

The Red Sea was shallow enough to be crossed on foot or on a small raft, and the Arabian peninsula was being transformed from a parched desert into a green land.

Kon-Tiki demonstrated that it was possible for a primitive raft to sail the Pacific with relative ease and safety, especially to the west ( with the wind ).

In London, England a raft of such so-called " lap dancing clubs " grew up in the 1990s, featuring pole dancing on stage and private table dancing, though, despite media misrepresentation, lap-dancing in the sense of bodily contact was forbidden by law.

Gorton then spent almost a day on a crowded liferaft, in shark-infested waters, with little drinking water, until the raft was spotted by HMAS Ballarat, which picked up the passengers and took them to Batavia.

While on board HMS Hampshire with Kitchener, Duquesne supposedly signalled the German submarine that sank the cruiser, got off by using a life raft before the ship sank, and was rescued by the submarine.

The Barlow Road was the first established land path for U. S. settlers through the Cascade Range in 1845, and formed the final overland link for the Oregon Trail ( previously, settlers had to raft down the treacherous rapids of the Columbia River ).

Other Navy search efforts were again directed north, west and southwest of Howland Island, based on a possibility the Electra had ditched in the ocean, was afloat, or that the aviators were in an emergency raft.

Redgrave and Lopham Fen was the first site in the UK at which a population of the fen raft spider ( Dolomedes plantarius ) was recorded.

In 1954 Redgrave and Lopham Fen was given the status as a Site of Special Scientific Interest ( SSSI ) due to the nationally important presence of the fen raft spider and the diversity of its fenland.

As there was no way of transportation, he and his friend built a large flat ( raft ), loaded his things and started drifting down the creeks and the Alapaha river to Micco Town.

It was John Peter Mauck who started the state's first ferry, a raft and tow line crossing to from Mauckport to Brandenburg, Kentucky on the opposite side of the river.

The concrete raft foundation, comprising of concrete was continuously poured through a period of 54 hours for each tower.

The original ferry was a raft built by Thomas, and had to be poled across the lake.

The lumber era at Little Pine lasted until 1909, when the last log raft was floated down Little Pine Creek.

His produce was sent by raft down the Susquehanna River and onto Baltimore where he was able to turn a profit.

* 1947 – Thor Heyerdahl's balsa wood raft the Kon-Tiki, smashes into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands after a 101-day, journey across the Pacific Ocean in an attempt to prove that pre-historic peoples could have traveled from South America.

These vehicles are self-propelled on land, they can transform into raft type ferries when in the water, and often multiple vehicles can connect to form larger rafts or floating bridges.

Thus, living birds were divided into carinates ( keeled ) and ratites ( from ratis, " raft ", referring to the flatness of the sternum ).

" There are four primary channels, clairsensing, trance, healing and physical, plus a whole raft of others that do not fit neatly into any one primary channel.

A young black Chicagoan, Eugene Williams, paddled a raft near a Southside Lake Michigan beach into " white territory ", and drowned after being hit by a rock thrown by a young white man.

In species that lay their eggs in rafts, rafts do not form adventitiously ; the female Culex settles carefully on still water with her hind legs crossed, and as she lays the eggs one by one, she twitches to arrange them into a head-down array that sticks together to form the raft.

The raft hit the railroad bridge and sent 45 passengers into the river, seven of whom died.

The end was actually the raft going out into the open ocean and being swept back inland, because for many miles you have a counter-current, the Amazon actually goes backwards.

This involves the rafter holding the webbing on the underside of the raft, and pushing their knees into the outer tube, and then lifting their body out of the water, leaning back to overturn the raft.

* Rock splats – If the rafters load the back of the raft, they can paddle the raft into a rock on the river, having it hit the bottom of the boat instead of the nose ; if done correctly this can raise the raft up vertically on its stern.

There is also a small box near the floor of the " main story " that contains various switches which can inflate a raft for crossing rivers and the ocean to a " lock-down " mode in which iron plates cover the windows ( as seen in Thornberry Island ) for typhoons ; there are other switches that can put the car into a submarine mode, or inflate a bag on top of the car for falling objects or rising to the surface of the ocean.

His life as a young man was a depressing experience, and involved a raft of unpleasant jobs in factories and offices, including working in a factory that turned bones into charcoal.

Heyerdahl and five companions sailed the raft for 101 days over 4, 300 miles across the Pacific Ocean before smashing into a reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands on August 7, 1947.

Again based on records of ancient vessels, this raft used a relatively sophisticated square sail that allowed sailing into the wind, or tacking.

According to the trade magazine, Broadcast, Gold " has secured a budget running into " double-digit millions " to create a raft of new comedy shows over the next two years.

The book follows the evolution of mankind as it shapes surviving Purgatorius into tree dwellers, remoulds a group that drifts from Africa to a ( then much closer ) New World on a raft formed out of debris, and confronting others with a terrible dead end as ice clamps down on Antarctica.

This is a popular competition where contestants must build a raft that can travel from the West Strand beach into Portrush Harbour.

The Riva was still selling well in Britain and many other western markets in the early 1990s, but the next few years saw a raft of new models come from budget competitors such as Daewoo, Hyundai, Kia and Proton, pushing Lada sales into terminal decline.

This-long wild ride plunges the raft into total darkness through a-diameter tunnel and down a drop at 30 miles per hour.

A wire connected to the plane opened the cylinder valve in the inflatable after the life raft was thrown into the water.