You were just out for a three hour tour of the Hawaiian Islands when a storm hit and damaged your boat. A fire started below deck and was put out quickly, but not before it destroyed a lot of your supplies and equipment. Now the ship is slowly sinking, and you have to get off of it (unless you believe in the captain going down with the ship). Since your navigational equipment has been damaged, your position is unclear. Your crew and passengers could probably have kept track of your position, except they were busy putting out the fire. Your best guess is that you are about one thousand miles south-southwest of Honolulu (the nearest island).

Listed below are fifteen (15) items on your boat that are not damaged and are intact. In addition to these items, you have one (1) functional rubber life raft with oars large enough to carry all the people on your ship and a pack of matches. You are not sure however how many of the fifteen items will fit in the raft with everyone. Since you refuse to leave one of your shipmates to drown, you must decide which items are most important to your survival. This way, you will know what is most important to take with you if all 15 items can not be carried in the raft.

Rank the fifteen items below in terms of their importance to your crew’s survival. An item marked 1 would be most important, while an item marked 15 would be the least important. Hurry!! The ships taken’ on water, and there’s nothing you can do! You must abandon ship soon, or adjust to life inside a very large aquarium.




• Sextant (hand-held navigational instrument)
• Shaving mirror
• Five-gallon can of fresh water
• Mosquito netting
• One case of emergency food rations
• Map of the Pacific Ocean
• Life vest
• Two-gallon can of oil-gas mixture
• Small transistor radio
• Shark repellent
• Twenty square feet of opaque plastic
• One quart of 160 proof Puerto Rican Rum
• Fifteen feet of nylon rope
• Two boxes of chocolate bars
• Fishing kit

The objective of this exercise is to enhance problem solving and prioritization skills. Deeper than that though, this exercise shows something else: if a person is long term oriented or short term oriented. Through the selection of items, it can be determined how an individual plans and prioritizes. A short sampling of identification items are listed below. A person does not need to have all items listed under a heading to be considered either short term or long term, but merely a majority. Not all items in this survey exercise have a place in determining short / long term planning. Also, a list of possible uses follows.

NOTE:These uses are not binding, creativity is encouraged!!