The document tells the story of three friends - Laia, Ona and Pau - who get lost at sea on an inflatable mattress that blows away from the beach. They build a raft out of tree trunks and other materials to try to get back to shore. Along the way, they encounter other people who help them by giving them an oar, a sail, and a small engine for their raft. However, they eventually get captured by pirates. Nico, a friend in the form of a fish, works to rescue them with the help of Iris the Mermaid. Together with Iris, they discover the underwater world before safely returning everyone back to the beach.

1. WHAT’S A SHIP?
Pre-School
Àrea d’Educació i Activitats
Nico and his friends, Laia, Ona and Pau,
are spending a day on the Beach with the
Sunflower School. Laia, Ona and Pau are
playing with an inflatable mattress when a
sudden strong gust of wind blows it out to
sea.
Nico, who had gone off to get a ball from
the beach, gets nervous when he discov-
ers that his friends have disappeared.
When no one is looking at him, he leaps
into the water an turns into Nicolau the Fish to start looking for them everywhere.
Meanwhile, their friends see a stretch of land approaching. Luckyly for them, be-
cause the rocks have punctured the mattress and, in reaching land, they find it
has become useless. Instead of losing hope, the three friends decide to solve their
problem.
Pau:
What can we do now, girls? How can we reach back to the beach?
Ona:
There’s only one thing we can do: building a boat of our
own. What can it be made of?
Laia:
We have to look for something that floats
The three of them start reaching for different materials.
Pau:
We’ve found lots of materials, but what floats best is a tree trunk. Do you
think we could tie some tree trunks together with a piece of rope? This way we
could build a raft and reach back to Barcelona.

2. No sooner said than done. Ona, Laia and Pau build a raft and go on board.
Laia:
It’s fantastic, friends! We can leave the island now!
But it emerges another problem. The raft is floating but, how are they going to
make it sail?
Ona:
This raft doesn’t move. We need something to propel it and start sailing!.
The three friends come back to land and start looking for something which serves
them to propel the ship.
Suddenly, a strange half-
dressed man with a green
crown on his head appears on
board of raft very similar to
theirs.
Man with the crown:
Where are you going to
with this raft?
Pau:
To Barcelona.
Man with the crown:
In that case, you’ll need something to propel the raft. A roar, for example. I
have a spare roar I don’t use here on my raft. I’m sure it will serve you better than
any piece of wood you may find on the island!
Laia:
Thanks a lot!! I’m pretty sure we can sail faster with that oar!
Pau, Laia and Ona start paddling but they soon get very tired of it.
Ona:
We’re so slow and so tired we’re never going to reach home.
Meanwhile, Nicolau the Fish has reached the island and found the materials their
friends have been testing to build a boat: stones, pieces of metal, a piece of bark...
Nicolau the Fish:
I’m late! They’ve already gone! Sorry, sir: have you seen three kids with a red
inflatable mattress? - asks Nicolau to the man with the crown who is still sailing
round there.

3. Man with the crown:
Of course I’ve seen them! They have build themselves a raft with tree trunks
and I have even given them an oar for them to sail. They have told me that they
were going back to Barcelona.
Nico dives again into the water and goes on swimming in the search of this friends,
lost in the middle of the sea.
Their friends are about to collapse when, suddenly, they see something.
Pau:
Look girls, a vessel! Let’s try to attract their attention! Help, help!! We’re here,
we’re here!
Ona:
Hello, good sailors. We’re three
friends from Barcelona lost at sea. Would
you mind taking us back to Barcelona
beach, please?
Sailor:
I’m sorry, but we just come from
Barcelona and we’re sailing to Mallorca,
we cannot change course again! If you
want, you can go on board and we’ll take
you to Alcudia Port.
Laia:
Thanks for your offering, but Mallorca is very, very far away. We better keep
on paddling on our way to Barcelona.
Sailor:
Well, we can offer you a sail to let you sail faster. And we will also give you a
small engine: that way you’ll be able to sail in case there is no wind! Nevertheless,
use the engine wisely, because there’s not much fuel remaining in the tank!
Pau, Ona and Nico mount the sail on the raft and, with the help of wind, start sail-
ing faster than before.
Meanwhile, Nico is so tired of swimming that he finally falls asleep in the middle of
the sea. When he wakes up, someone is shaking him, and he’s also surrounded by
a crowd of sea creatures: a dolphin, a whale, a crab, a piece of coral… He’s trapped
in the fishnet of a fishing ship!
Fisher:
-Well well, what a strange fish we have caught!

4. Nico transforms into a boy and tells his story to the fishermen.
Fisherman:
So you say you’re looking for three kids on a
raft? We saw them a while ago, sailing on a raft
with a sail. They asked for our help, but we’re fish-
ing and it’s been impossible for us to bring them
back to Barcelona, so they’ve decided to leave on
their own.
Nico:
Thank you very much for the information. I’ll
try to find them!
And there he goes. Nicolau transforms again into a fish, leaving the fishermen
open-mouthed, and dives into the water to continue looking for his friends.
He swims and swims and, after a while, a very disgusting
smell coming from a ship raises the alarm. Wait… the ship is
approaching a raft and… Oh, no! It’s the raft with Laia, Ona
and Pau on board! And it’s not a friendly ship, quite the oppo-
site… Standing on the deck Nicolau can see a gang of strong,
hairy, dirty, stinky men… My goodness! They’re Captain Red
Beard’s dreadful pirates! Poor Ona, Laia and Pau end up tied
up in the ship’s deck, ready to be sold as slaves!

5. Nico feels he has to do something to help his friends and decides to go and look for
his friend Iris the Mermaid. She immediately agrees to help them and they both
rapidly swim towards the pirate galley.
Upon arriving, Iris starts singing a melody so
wonderfully irresistible that makes all pirates
jump into the water… but none of them
knows how to swim! Can you imagine where
they all ended up? You’re right: at the bot-
tom of the sea!
Nico:
I’m so happy to see you again, my friends! She’s my friend Iris the Mermaid!
All five friends join in a big hug
Iris:
I’m glad to help you! It’s been a while since I last spoke with someone. Living
under the sea without friends can be very boring. Why don’t you come with me and
we all take a walk around the bottom of the sea? I would like to feel your company,
although it’s just for a short time!
Ona, Laia, Pau and Nico:
Of course we can! - cry all four friends in unison.—It will be a fantastic experi-
ence.
Iris calls for some sea horses, Ona, Pau and Laia ride on them and together with

6. Iris and Nicolau the Fish, they discover
the wonders hidden under the blue
and clean water: coral, shells, sea
stars, sponges, crabs, shoals of colour-
ful fishes...
After a while, Laia, who’s a little worried, says something:
Laia:
Oh my friends, this is amazing, but our teachers and parents must be very
worried. They may think that something horrible has happened to us! Don’t you
think it’s time for us to come back home?
Ona:
Yes, you’re right! I’ve been so amazed I didn’t think of it! But sure we have to
immediately reach the beach !
Iris:
Don’t you worry, kids, let me guide you to the beach and you won’t get lost
again!
Riding on the sea horses, they come back to the raft and then, with the help of Iris,
they reach Barcelona beach in a tick. It’s nigh time and teachers and parents are
extremely happy when they can finally see the kids! There are kisses and hugs eve-
rywhere!!

7. PROPULSION
The first thing human beings used to float on the water was probably a tree trunk.
Almost all exotic ships derive from a trunk. The first canoes and kayaks arose from
sharpening the outline of the tree trunk and hollowing it out. By tying some tree
trunks together human beings invented the raft.
Pole: When there’s no much depth and the shore or the
bank is near, a person standing up on the boat can make
use of a pole to propel it, just by pushing against the bot-
tom while sliding the hands all along the pole.
Oars: One of the best systems to cover
short distances. With the oars, the person
pushes against the water instead of the bot-
tom.
Sails: The sail was the main propulsion system
used by boats until the introduction of steam-
boats. A sail is basically a big surface made of
cloth which takes advantage of the wind force.
There are two main types of sail: triangular
ones, typical of Mediterranean fishing boats
(aka lateen sails); and quadrangular sails, typi-
cal of fully rigged big vessels.
Engine: On the 19th Century sails were gradually
replaced firstly by paddlewheels, then by screws pro-
pelled by steam engines, turbines, nuclear propul-
sion, diesel engines...

8. SHIPBUILDING
Almost all wooden ships were built at the beach. Shipyards were merely sheds to
store tools and protect materials from storms. It was the place chosen to give shape
to timber (usually heating it up).
The keel was built on the first place; it’s like the backbone of the ship. After that,
timber ribs were fixed in the keel. Next, this skeleton was covered with wooden
boards and the decks were built immediately after. Lastly, the boat was rigged; that
is, it was provided with masts and sails.
Skin Ribs Keel

9. SHIPS FOR EVERYTHING
The basic purpose of a boat has always been the
same: letting people cross water surfaces. But ships
do serve for many other things, and that’s the reason
why boats can have an almost endless amount of
shapes and sizes. Use determines the physical fea-
tures of a ship. Warships are provided with all kinds
of weaponry. Trading ships are built with wide holds
to store goods. In a cruise ship passengers want to
spend a good time and that’s the reason why it fea-
tures comfortable cabins, spacious restaurants,
gyms…; at the same time, a cruise ship must provide
leisure activities and, more important, it has to be a
safe place for all passengers.
There are also people who love to practice some kind
of sport on board a boat and, for this purpose, there
are lots of different models to chose from: dinghy
sailing boats, canoes, kayaks…
Fishing boats and ships are also very important in the
world of watercrafts. Their shape gets determined by
the type of fishing technique they’re using. There’s
the encesa technique (to fish at night with a lantern);
the bottom-trawling fishing boats (which consists in
dragging a bag-shaped fishing net by the seabed);
purse-seine fishing (setting the net in a circle to take
out the caught fishes standing from the boat); and
nowadays there are also modern big motorboats pro-
vided with everything necessary for long fishing jour-
neys into the open sea.

10. Mainmast
GLOSSARY: SHIPS
Prow: The front part of a ship or boat
Stern: The rear part of a ship or boat
Port side: The left part of a ship or boat, facing forward
Starboard: The right part of a ship or boat, facing forward
Mainmast: The central and main mast of a ship
Foremast: The mast nearest the bow in all vessels having two or
more masts.
Mizzenmast The third mast from forward in a vessel having three or
more masts.
Bowprist A spar projecting from the upper end of the bow of a sail-
ing vessel
STERN PROW
Mizzenmast
Foremast
Bowprist