Arctic survival, starting in hell at minus fifty degrees Celsius

Sun Chengwu rarely spoke to Richard in such a solemn tone, but every time he did, it meant the matter was extremely important.

Richard, equally serious, said, "Go on."

Sun Chengwu opened the door, looked outside to make sure no one was eavesdropping, and then said, "I plan to go out to sea and find a sightseeing boat."

The sightseeing boat incident was known to the group that initially followed Sun Chengwu, and Richard was one of them.

Richard frowned. "Does it have to be now?"

Sun Chengwu nodded and said, "Yes, the polar night is coming soon, a polar night that will last for half a year. I don't know what will happen."

Finding rescue before the polar night arrives would be the best outcome for us.

It was expected that they could return safely, even if they couldn't find it.

Richard frowned, his expression mirroring Li Mu's. "Are we fully prepared?"

Sun Chengwu smiled wryly, "Where would we find the time to prepare fully? We can only say we're preparing as much as possible. I've already arranged for people to build rafts. I'll go to Xu Hui's camp in the near future and ask them to provide a raft as well."

Richard understood Sun Chengwu's personality. "What do you need me to do?"

Sun Chengwu said, "Keep the news under wraps. Help me procure animal supplies while I'm away. After I go to sea, I'll leave the house to you. Be careful of Rogers."

Richard agreed, "Okay."

With everything arranged, Sun Chengwu prepared to depart for Xu Hui's camp.

Another purpose of this trip was to bring back some krill to eat.

Sun Chengwu didn't go empty-handed; he brought back some daily necessities from the Hadza people, which accounted for more than half of the total supplies.

Sun Chengwu only brought Ye Zhiqi and a few brothers with him this time.

Wang Hu and Lao Ma stayed behind to receive training from Rogers.

While Sun Chengwu was at sea, Juliana was also working diligently on the construction of the raft.

Sun Chengwu, along with Ye Zhiqi and a few trusted brothers, dragged a sled loaded with supplies and disappeared into the southern snowstorm.

On the surface, the camp's daily operations continued as usual, with people cutting down trees and processing meat, but the atmosphere in the inner circle was quietly tense.

In a sheltered bay closest to the sea, far from the main residential area, Juliana and Guan Fulin began their new project.

Build a raft that can travel between ice floes in the Arctic Ocean and carry several people and supplies.

"The key to a raft is buoyancy and structural strength."

Juliana squatted on the snow, sketching a charcoal drawing on a relatively flat wooden board.

Guan Fulin watched carefully from the side, adding comments from time to time.

They weren't professionals, but practice makes perfect. They'd designed and built so many things lately that their design concepts were at least sound.

Juliana's drawing skills are good; a rough outline of a rectangular frame has emerged.

She said, "Traditional rafts are made by binding logs together, but our logs are not long enough or straight enough, and their buoyancy is limited."

We need to use a frame structure to save wood and reduce weight.

Guan Fulin asked疑惑地, "What's used to connect the frames? Mortise and tenon joints and ropes, again?"

Juliana thought for a moment and said, "The mortise and tenon joints aren't strong enough; the rope will loosen after being soaked in seawater."

We need to use wooden wedges and iron hoops.

Juliana pointed to the keel connection point on the sketch, "We can find a way to forge some iron bars from the leftover slag from the last iron smelting, heat them until they are red-hot, bend them into a U-shape, and fit them onto the joints of the wood while they are still hot. After they cool down, they can be tightly bound together."

Then, use hardwood wedges to drive them in from the side for further reinforcement.

At critical stress points, strips of animal hide soaked in pine resin can be used for binding to increase resilience.

Guan Fulin couldn't help but exclaim, "Genius!"

The framework is there, but what about buoyancy?

Wood itself doesn't have enough buoyancy, and it sinks after absorbing water.

Juliana smiled confidently, "I've already decided, I'll use a stomach bladder."

Do you know what sheepskin hair is?

We combined sheepskin pouches with wooden structures, stitching these stomach sacs and bladders together as much as possible to create air sacs.

Then, the bellows are used to blow air in the opposite direction, inflating the rafts. They are then sealed and fixed in the middle and on both sides of the raft frame.

As long as they don't leak air, they can provide tremendous buoyancy and are lighter than solid wood.

Even if one air bladder leaks, as long as there are other air bladders, the raft will not sink.

We can also prepare more airbags and make a bellows to inflate on the ship for emergency use.

"Great idea!" Guan Fulin's eyes lit up, and he became more and more impressed with the genius girl in front of him.

He asked again, "How are these buoys secured? How are they prevented from being torn by the ice floes?"

Juliana was deep in thought, her brows furrowed, constantly scribbling and drawing on the blueprints.

After discarding two or three drawings, a framework structure appeared on the paper.

Pointing to the frame structure, she said, "Perhaps we could try weaving a net from thin strips of wood and rope at the bottom of the raft frame, put the airbags in the net, and then cover it with a layer of wooden planks for protection."

The airbag itself can be wrapped in multiple layers of treated thin animal hide to increase its abrasion resistance.

Guan Fulin continued to ask, "What about the mast and sail? Without power, they're just drifting with the current at sea."

Juliana added a few more strokes to the sketch: "Make a detachable mast. There aren't enough spruce trees to make a raft, but enough to make a mast."

Sail... We don't have suitable cloth, and I don't know how to make sails.

We'll have to use oars then.

Guan Fulin added, "Then we also need a rudder to control the direction."

The two of them talked back and forth, constantly refining the design.

Once the initial design was finalized, the operation commenced immediately.

Richard was in charge of material allocation, while Rogers, along with Wang Hu and Lao Ma, ostensibly stated that they were building a new warehouse in the wild to stockpile timber.

In fact, many of the selected and qualified timbers were secretly transported to the seaside workshops.

Because they couldn't let too many people know, Wang Hu, Lao Ma, and the three alternates suffered greatly.

Even Guan Fulin and Richard personally took part in the operation.

While the raft was being built at a rapid pace, Sun Chengwu and his men arrived at Xu Hui's camp five days later.

Upon arriving at Xu Hui's camp, Sun Chengwu sensed a different atmosphere.

Wang Fu, who was on lookout duty, spotted them and gave a tired smile. "Xiao Wu, you're here. Brother Hui has been talking about you for a long time. Come with me."

Seeing the gloom on his face, Sun Chengwu asked疑惑地, "Has something happened at the camp lately?"

Wang Fu let out a long breath and said in a low voice, "It's all because of that incident last time, which caused a complete split between men and women, and even the couples who remained neutral were affected."

Brother Hui, mindful of past friendships, was unwilling to resolve the matter with violence.

However, the other side went even further, even arbitrarily withholding our food. Now they have taken control of the food storage warehouse and are only giving us the minimum amount each day.

I haven't had a proper meal in days.