3 Metaphors for rafts

The ship continued to approach, and the raft was less than half a mile from her bows, when the vast fabric suddenly receded from the breeze, showed the whole of its glittering broadside, and, swinging its yards, betrayed by its new position that the search in that direction was abandoned.

The raft, from one extremity, to the other was at least twenty metres in length, and about seven in breadth; this length might induce one to think, at the first sight, that it was able to carry two hundred men, but we soon had cruel proofs of its weakness.

The raft itself was quite a rude affair, being formed of small bundles of wood lashed together, without any shape or form, quite different from any we had seen before.

3 Metaphors for  rafts