A team of people built the raft, not Bear, and it took a week and a half to build

From BearWiki

Confirmed: A team of people built the raft, not Bear, and it took a week and a half to build.

According to show consultant Celeste Cole[1]:

"As you might have guessed, I just returned from 3 weeks consulting, and guiding wilderness survival skills on a beautiful island in the south Pacific.

...

"These amazing voyagers have become an inspiration to me for a humble challenge I was given while in Hawaii. This challenge was to design and construct a primitive vessel by hand, using primitive techniques that could travel at least 50 miles in open ocean, in a week, complete with sail, no less! I did meet the challenge though it was not completely accomplished in one week, it took a few more days, and of course I did cheat using rope instead of natural cordage on most of the raft. But it was an incredible experience, and the best part of the whole thing is that the raft floated, was self-bailing, and rode easily in the wave not bouncing and yawing like traditional watercraft will. It held together in some very rough and nasty weather including heavy ocean swell, and withstood the challenge of Princess, a 16′ Tiger Shark, who became curious of the raft and to get a sense of what this object might be, gummed the aft section of the raft with her massive jaws! Wow! This can be a problem with Tigers, if they don’t know what you are, they may gum you to see if you are food, while it really didn’t damage the raft, this gumming could very easily damage or cause one to bleed profusely and quickly end our fun. (I highly recommend Jimmy & Stephanie of hawaiisharkencounters.com for a shark encounter experience, their super folks and Stephanie is very informative regarding shark behavior.) I had great help in building the raft as well, (which was christened lovingly the “Celeste”, complete with champagne and hurrahs.) and I would like to thank Mike and Jennifer of Kualoa Ranch, also Brian, and Frank for working so hard on the project. I hope to have pictures of the “Celeste” available in a few weeks to view, along with Princess the Tiger Shark!"

Celeste was the consultant who also admitted that Bear shipped horses in for the "wild" horses in the Sierras episode.

Update: From a commenter on YouTube:

" I work at Kualoa ranch and this guys show shut down half the ranch just so no one would see him film in this "remote" location. then he made my boss and some other employees fill his bamboo raft with foam so it float right. What A DDD!"

[edit] Analysis

Oppose: The term "design" presents a problem for this page. This article alone does not prove that Bear did not utilize a design to build his own raft. The length of time it took the author of this article to complete the raft does not prove that it would have taken Bear Grylls too long to construct his own in the time the show takes to film, as already knowing of this design may have provided him with the skill to construct the raft much more quickly. And finally, the presence of a consultation and/or editing team does not uphold the idea that the show is fake.

Oppose: Even if it might really take longer to construct than he supposedly took on the show, that doesn't mean that he would not have worked out this design after a more extended period. Personally, I'm glad they didn't stretch out this particular episode for several weeks to show how long it might take to make a good design. Perhaps it was misleading about the time it took, but the point is, you could do it.

Support: And if they tried to do it like it appeared on the show, they would have died. Oceangoing raftbuilding from raw materials is not a task for amateurs, let alone amateurs given the impression that this "great raft" only requires a couple days of labor to end up sturdy and used hibiscus as binding.

Support: The “design” argument completely ignores the fact that the narrative clearly states the consultant’s task was “to design and construct” a raft. The narrative also clearly indicates the raft constructed by the consultant was the same one uses in the filming of the episode. Unless we are to believe that they tested a prototype “design” on the ocean under the same conditions as the episode, complete with an attacking 16 ft. tiger shark nicked name “Princess”. The only reasonable and logical conclusion is the raft described in this article is the same one Bear used for the episode.

Oppose: The entire point of this page is to prove that Man vs. Wild is a hoax. All of the shortcuts, such as using manila rope and getting help in building the raft is admitted by Bear, so how is it a hoax?

Support: Bear has admitted to almost nothing. So far, the only thing he's admitted to is the life jacket. His *crew* and *consultants* are the ones doing the admitting. And how does what he has admitted change the fact that the show has cheated and tried to convince viewers of things that aren't true?

Support: I'm constantly amazed to hear people continually stating that Bare has admitted ANY wrong doing. The closest he's ever come was being confronted on the Discovery forum chat about wearing the hidden PFD and acknowledging that and blaming it on the Health & Safety people. Otherwise, he's admitted NOTHING. The only in the re-edited episodes that we ever find out the depths of the deceptions. And Bare's position on all this? "Yeah, it's all my fault - WHATEVER."