Some Assembly Required (2007–…): Season 2, Episode 9 - Some Assembly Required - full transcript
UNGER: For all
the stuff in our world,
there's a story of
how it came to be.
Hello. I'm Brian Unger.
Coming up on "Some
Assembly Required,"
the rise of a San Francisco
staple... sourdough.
And I'm a man on a mission
to produce one of the
world's most rugged boats.
We're in San
Francisco, California,
to make one of the things
that makes this city so special.
Sourdough bread.
Sourdough.
It's as much of a local landmark
as the Golden Gate Bridge.
But making this particular bread
takes a lot more than
just yeast, flour, and water.
It's a careful balance
between art and science.
Here at Boudin's Bakery,
their sourdough owes
much of its success
to a very special ingredient,
one that's been alive
for over 150 years.
So, what makes San
Francisco's sourdough bread
so special, so distinctive
that no one can replicate it,
duplicate it, or reproduce it
anywhere else in the world?
The answer is...
all around us.
With its cool, foggy climate,
San Francisco is host
to a rare bacterium
that can only survive here.
Its name?
Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis.
Yeah, try saying
that three times fast.
This Lactobacillus
sanfranciscensis
is a living,
breathing ingredient
in every loaf of San
Francisco sourdough.
And it comes from the
starter, or mother dough.
Every starter has
a unique taste,
so Boudin works very
hard to keep theirs alive.
This particular
colony of bacteria
has been a key element
in Boudin's sourdough
since, oh, 1849.
Yes, 1849.
For over a century, Boudin
has been feeding this starter
a steady diet of
flour and water.
Every morning, they use
some starter for the day's bread
and hold back the
rest for future use.
- Sits here, right?
- Yeah.
Fernando Padilla functions
as a kind of zookeeper here,
making sure the bacteria
in the mother dough
continue to thrive.
I want you to
inhale a little bit
so you see the
strength of the mother,
how concentrated this is.
So go ahead. Put
your nose in there.
Inhale now all the fermentation.
Wow. Now, I can
smell the fermentation.
- [Coughs]
- Yeah. It's funky. It's funky.
PADILLA: It's amazing
how strong this can be.
Actually, with this
piece of dough,
you can make about
500 loaves of bread
with just this little piece,
how concentrated it is.
So if something were
to happen to this room...
Oh, don't say that.
And God forbid, it'd be over.
PADILLA: It would
take a long time
before we can re-create
another starter that is right.
God knows if it's gonna be
the same starter since 1849
that we've been keeping alive.
It might have picked up another
flavor, a different bacteria.
So that's why we're able to
keep this guy alive all this time.
So I hope not. This is our...
Literally, your
bread and butter.
The starter is
just the beginning.
Baking bread also
requires a lot of flour.
This silo holds up to
60,000 pounds of wheat flour,
about a week's supply.
Flour here at Boudin is
brought into the bakery
through this metal piping
that runs the length of the wall.
It kind of looks like
electrical conduit.
But it actually carries our
flour into this big flour hopper
at the rate of 200
pounds of flour per minute.
And then it's dropped
into our mixing bowl.
The kind of flour we use is
one of the most critical factors
in baking our sourdough bread.
Now, the two main
proteins in wheat flour
are gliadin and glutenin.
When mixed with water,
they form a stretchy
substance called gluten.
Now, gluten is what
holds our dough together.
It gives it elasticity.
And when we start
baking it, it expands,
trapping the carbon
dioxide in the dough,
and allows our
sourdough bread to grow.
After the flour is weighed out,
we're ready to
mix our ingredients.
Boudin puts together
a precise blend
of water, salt, wheat flour,
and, of course, the
all-powerful mother dough,
a combination of
yeast and bacteria.
With our ingredients mixed,
this dough has a long
way to go before it becomes
San Francisco's
most famous bread.
In San Francisco,
this is the oldest
living citizen in the city.
We're at the Boudin
Bakery in San Francisco,
making their
world-famous sourdough.
The dough, made of mostly flour
and some of Boudin's
signature starter,
is mixed for 10 minutes.
Then a worker
transports it to the rounder,
where the 400-pound
ball begins to ferment.
'Round and 'round our
sourdough goes, into the rounder.
What it's doing is forming
loaf-sized pieces of dough
into perfectly nice spheres
with a very smooth, closed
surface on the outside.
That's important,
because in the next stage
of the fermentation process,
we want this outer
surface to be sealed
so that when the
fermentation begins,
it expands nice and uniformly
and smoothly on the outside.
From the rounder,
the dough pieces move
into individual rectangular
trays that carry them
to a humidity- and
temperature-controlled cabinet
called an intermediate proof.
At this stage, our dough has
a chance to recover and rest
from the effects of the
dividing and rounding machines,
which constrict the gluten.
Without this moist
resting period,
the dough would be tight and
rubbery and difficult to shape.
After the dough's
first resting period,
it goes to the lane molder,
a machine that flattens,
curls, and shapes it
into baguettes and other
types of long breads.
A separate conveyor belt
carries the dough
to a second rounder,
where it is formed
into rounded breads.
And now our sourdough
is moved into this room.
This is called a
retarding cabinet.
And there's a reduced
temperature in here.
It ranges from 60 to 70 degrees.
Now, inside here, our
yeast is lying dormant.
But our bacteria
is having a party.
[Dance music plays]
It's like a nightclub in here.
It's going crazy,
feeding on all that sugar
and producing that
acidic, sour flavor.
During fermentation,
yeast feeds on sugar and
releases carbon dioxide,
causing the bread to rise.
But sourdough
differs from most bread
because it has more
bacteria than yeast.
The bacteria consume
much more of the sugar,
producing lactic
and acetic acids,
which cause the sour taste.
Also...
The longer something ferments,
the more sour it's going
to taste in your mouth.
Settle down, bacteria.
- Really, really loud.
- [Record scratches]
Now that we have
our sour flavor,
we're ready for the final
stage of fermentation,
the proofing cabinet.
The heat is turned up here
so that the yeast can do its job,
helping the bread to rise.
Soon, the bread will
be twice its original size.
The loaves are left here
anywhere from one to four hours,
depending on the type of bread.
Before we bake our bread,
master baker Fernando
has one more thing to do...
Score the loaves.
It takes time, huh?
I didn't do so well.
It looks like a bear
got ahold of that,
just clawed its way
through that sourdough.
Let me see the master at work.
I need to make sure.
Fernando's only been doing
this since he was 16 years old.
That means what, 30 years here?
Almost 30 years.
UNGER: Wow. You really
score that very quickly.
Okay. Now, is this your
personal signature right here?
Yes, it is.
That's basically like Fernando
just tagged this bread.
At last, we're ready
to bake our sourdough.
Now, in the first few minutes,
the bread will begin to rise.
This is a phase
called oven spring.
And carbon-dioxide
gas will be released.
At 140 degrees,
the lactobacilli die
and the yeast dies.
Fermentation halts.
And then it'll soon be
time to eat the bread.
A watched loaf never bakes.
[Beeping]
And during baking,
the dough sets and becomes
our delicious, crusty bread.
After all this 72
hours of long process,
now we're ready
to sell our bread.
So the bread that we baked
that we started 72 hours ago...
Uh-oh... now we've
got to send it to the café.
So please help me
load up this basket
so we can get it in there.
Yeah. Come on.
- So you just put it in?
- We have to fill it up.
How much are you putting
into each one of these?
At least eight loaves.
Eight loaves. That
one's a little short.
We've got one more.
[Laughs]
Hey! [Laughs]
Right on! See that?
[Siren wails]
We're in Marblehead
Harbor, just outside of Boston.
And we're involved
in a training exercise
with the Ipswich
Fire Department.
We've got a man overboard,
and he needs to be rescued.
Rescued by a very unique boat.
That boat is a Ribcraft,
a rigid inflatable boat,
a vessel that can zoom
around like a speedboat,
carry us into any
kind of situation
without fear of
flooding or tipping over.
The rigid inflatable boat,
also known as a RIB,
gets its name from
its two basic parts...
The hard outer shell
and the oversized inner
tube that surrounds it.
So, what does it
take to assemble one?
We're here at Ribcraft in
Marblehead, Massachusetts,
to find out.
This is how we begin
to build our boat.
Now, we've got to build a hull,
and to do that, we use molds.
This is the mold
for the Ribcraft hull.
Workers apply several
layers to create a rigid shell,
but it starts with the gel coat.
The gel coat is
a polyester resin
that's waterproof and
virtually weatherproof.
This surface is also
impervious to U. V. rays.
This is just the outer layer,
the skin of the Ribcraft.
We've still got to add
another layer of support.
Think of it as the skeleton.
It's eight times as
thick as the gel coat
and made primarily
of fiberglass.
And when bonded together
with a mixture of
resin and a catalyst,
these elements combine
to make a single hard shell
that's tough and waterproof.
After six applications,
the coat of fiberglass
and resin is complete.
After drying overnight, our
layers of fiberglass and resin
are ready to be
lifted from the mold.
We'll affix some
chains to these,
drive some wedges under the lip.
And we will lift this out like
a cake coming out of a pan,
our deep-V hull.
The hull, all 600 pounds of it,
is carefully raised
from its mold.
At this point, the hull
is joined with the liner,
and our RIB looks like...
Well, just kind of like
a regular speedboat.
But not for long.
First, boatmakers trim and
sand away excess fiberglass.
Next, they add this
hinge here, the gusset.
Ribcraft's Matthew Velluto
shows me why the
gusset is so important.
You're putting these
tubes through a lot.
This is gonna keep
it from coming off?
The way that it works is it
allows the rigid fiberglass hull
to interact with a
soft, inflatable tube.
And the tube sits
right on top of this.
And what happens
is, it allows the tube
to move a little
bit and ride along.
If we didn't have this here
and we just put it right
on the hard fiberglass,
the tube would eventually start
to just peel itself
away from the hull.
So you're absorbing
the energy from the shock
that you're putting
these boats through.
The gusset is made of
Hypalon, a synthetic rubber
that is resistant
to rotting or tearing
and can last up to 30 years,
ideally suited for the
RIB's rescue missions.
We've assembled the
rigid part of the boat.
Now it's time for
the inflatable part.
This is the "I" in our R.I.B.
[Grunts]
This is what makes our boat
the darling of the
search-and-rescue community.
This is what gives our RIB
its incredible
stability, its buoyancy,
and its ability to handle all
kinds of extreme conditions.
Meet the inflatable tube.
First, we inflate the tube.
Then we add
handles and lifelines
as well as the rubstrake.
It's an extra strip of rubber
that's kind of
like a car bumper.
Like the gusset,
the tube is made of the
synthetic fabric Hypalon,
which is resistant
to tearing or rotting.
Here are the real
advantages of the tube.
The fabric can withstand the
roughest weather and water.
The tube increases
buoyancy and stability.
The soft, air-filled sides
allow the crew close contact
with people and other
boats in the water.
So, just how
sturdy is this tube?
The natural reaction is
to pound on it like this.
You know, if I took a knife
and I just put it
right through here,
could I sink this boat?
No.
One of the biggest
benefits to having a RIB
is you have a tube that has
seven different chambers
all the way around the tube.
So if you actually did
have the off chance
of puncturing the tube,
you wouldn't lose the
entire air-holding ability.
Before the tube can be attached,
workers have to
sand and clean it
to make sure there's
no rough spots.
So, the question is,
how do we get our
tube to stick to our boat?
We do it with this.
Pea soup.
What looks a
little like pea soup
is actually a kind of
high-powered glue
that will begin to
dry immediately.
So we have to
apply it in a hurry.
This is glue on steroids.
Did you guys do
this area right here?
Okay, I'll go back and
do this area over here.
All right. Should
we put that tube on?
Yeah, let's do it.
My turn to apply the tube
with director of operations
Matt Provenzano.
PROVENZANO: Okay,
the way this is gonna work
is we're gonna bond the
hull and the tube together.
These two guys
are our head tubers.
They've stuck several hundred
of these in the last few years.
You guys know what
you're doing, then.
They're gonna direct.
And our muscles
behind the operation
is this guy named Jeff.
UNGER: Jeff. Yeah!
What happens if
I make a mistake?
Well, if you make a mistake,
what we're gonna do is we're
gonna pull the tube back up.
We'll reactivate
the glue, restick it.
- You know what else I'd do?
- What's that?
Fire Jeff.
- We need him?
- We need him.
Okay. Jeff, let's
get on our tubes.
We're gonna do
this with the tube.
You got it. Flip it. Roger that.
I'll just hang out
over here, then.
Jeff, flip that tube.
- I'm ready.
- Okay.
Seriously, do you
need me to do anything?
Yeah, just lift that up.
Okay.
- Walk it over towards me.
- Yes.
Should probably have
a guy in the middle.
Oh, I see what you're doing.
Oh, it's just like flipping
your tube at home.
That's right.
It takes a team of
about five people
to make sure the tube
sits just right on the gusset.
PROVENZANO: And they'll
also tell you to move them back.
Up.
I want to do this the
right way the first time.
Tell me when to lower it.
- Come out.
- Come out.
And finally, the
tube is aligned.
And we're ready
for the next step...
Making sure the tube will
stay in place... permanently.
PROVENZANO: Basically,
what we want to do now
is apply weight down
the entire system.
And what is that weight
that you put on there?
Bodies.
So is this...
So their technology has become
very advanced over the years
in getting the tube
to stick to the boat.
Have you guys just
not come around
to creating a machine
that would do this?
There's just no substitute
for dropping your
[bleep] on the tube.
Because Ribcraft produces boats
of so many different
shapes and sizes,
they say that people
are a better fit for this job
than machines.
Oh, man.
So it's really part
boat-building, part rodeo.
Finally, the boat needs a
few last key components
before it's ready to go.
Workers put in the seats...
add the driver's station...
and hook up the wiring.
Then everything is fine-tuned
and our Ribcraft is done.
All right, gentlemen.
Let's put this boat in
the water, shall we?
Oh, yeah.
And what better way to prove
that a rigid inflatable
boat is ready for action
than this?
[Siren wailing]
Racing out over the open water
just like you would on a
real-life rescue mission.
the stuff in our world,
there's a story of
how it came to be.
Hello. I'm Brian Unger.
Coming up on "Some
Assembly Required,"
the rise of a San Francisco
staple... sourdough.
And I'm a man on a mission
to produce one of the
world's most rugged boats.
We're in San
Francisco, California,
to make one of the things
that makes this city so special.
Sourdough bread.
Sourdough.
It's as much of a local landmark
as the Golden Gate Bridge.
But making this particular bread
takes a lot more than
just yeast, flour, and water.
It's a careful balance
between art and science.
Here at Boudin's Bakery,
their sourdough owes
much of its success
to a very special ingredient,
one that's been alive
for over 150 years.
So, what makes San
Francisco's sourdough bread
so special, so distinctive
that no one can replicate it,
duplicate it, or reproduce it
anywhere else in the world?
The answer is...
all around us.
With its cool, foggy climate,
San Francisco is host
to a rare bacterium
that can only survive here.
Its name?
Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis.
Yeah, try saying
that three times fast.
This Lactobacillus
sanfranciscensis
is a living,
breathing ingredient
in every loaf of San
Francisco sourdough.
And it comes from the
starter, or mother dough.
Every starter has
a unique taste,
so Boudin works very
hard to keep theirs alive.
This particular
colony of bacteria
has been a key element
in Boudin's sourdough
since, oh, 1849.
Yes, 1849.
For over a century, Boudin
has been feeding this starter
a steady diet of
flour and water.
Every morning, they use
some starter for the day's bread
and hold back the
rest for future use.
- Sits here, right?
- Yeah.
Fernando Padilla functions
as a kind of zookeeper here,
making sure the bacteria
in the mother dough
continue to thrive.
I want you to
inhale a little bit
so you see the
strength of the mother,
how concentrated this is.
So go ahead. Put
your nose in there.
Inhale now all the fermentation.
Wow. Now, I can
smell the fermentation.
- [Coughs]
- Yeah. It's funky. It's funky.
PADILLA: It's amazing
how strong this can be.
Actually, with this
piece of dough,
you can make about
500 loaves of bread
with just this little piece,
how concentrated it is.
So if something were
to happen to this room...
Oh, don't say that.
And God forbid, it'd be over.
PADILLA: It would
take a long time
before we can re-create
another starter that is right.
God knows if it's gonna be
the same starter since 1849
that we've been keeping alive.
It might have picked up another
flavor, a different bacteria.
So that's why we're able to
keep this guy alive all this time.
So I hope not. This is our...
Literally, your
bread and butter.
The starter is
just the beginning.
Baking bread also
requires a lot of flour.
This silo holds up to
60,000 pounds of wheat flour,
about a week's supply.
Flour here at Boudin is
brought into the bakery
through this metal piping
that runs the length of the wall.
It kind of looks like
electrical conduit.
But it actually carries our
flour into this big flour hopper
at the rate of 200
pounds of flour per minute.
And then it's dropped
into our mixing bowl.
The kind of flour we use is
one of the most critical factors
in baking our sourdough bread.
Now, the two main
proteins in wheat flour
are gliadin and glutenin.
When mixed with water,
they form a stretchy
substance called gluten.
Now, gluten is what
holds our dough together.
It gives it elasticity.
And when we start
baking it, it expands,
trapping the carbon
dioxide in the dough,
and allows our
sourdough bread to grow.
After the flour is weighed out,
we're ready to
mix our ingredients.
Boudin puts together
a precise blend
of water, salt, wheat flour,
and, of course, the
all-powerful mother dough,
a combination of
yeast and bacteria.
With our ingredients mixed,
this dough has a long
way to go before it becomes
San Francisco's
most famous bread.
In San Francisco,
this is the oldest
living citizen in the city.
We're at the Boudin
Bakery in San Francisco,
making their
world-famous sourdough.
The dough, made of mostly flour
and some of Boudin's
signature starter,
is mixed for 10 minutes.
Then a worker
transports it to the rounder,
where the 400-pound
ball begins to ferment.
'Round and 'round our
sourdough goes, into the rounder.
What it's doing is forming
loaf-sized pieces of dough
into perfectly nice spheres
with a very smooth, closed
surface on the outside.
That's important,
because in the next stage
of the fermentation process,
we want this outer
surface to be sealed
so that when the
fermentation begins,
it expands nice and uniformly
and smoothly on the outside.
From the rounder,
the dough pieces move
into individual rectangular
trays that carry them
to a humidity- and
temperature-controlled cabinet
called an intermediate proof.
At this stage, our dough has
a chance to recover and rest
from the effects of the
dividing and rounding machines,
which constrict the gluten.
Without this moist
resting period,
the dough would be tight and
rubbery and difficult to shape.
After the dough's
first resting period,
it goes to the lane molder,
a machine that flattens,
curls, and shapes it
into baguettes and other
types of long breads.
A separate conveyor belt
carries the dough
to a second rounder,
where it is formed
into rounded breads.
And now our sourdough
is moved into this room.
This is called a
retarding cabinet.
And there's a reduced
temperature in here.
It ranges from 60 to 70 degrees.
Now, inside here, our
yeast is lying dormant.
But our bacteria
is having a party.
[Dance music plays]
It's like a nightclub in here.
It's going crazy,
feeding on all that sugar
and producing that
acidic, sour flavor.
During fermentation,
yeast feeds on sugar and
releases carbon dioxide,
causing the bread to rise.
But sourdough
differs from most bread
because it has more
bacteria than yeast.
The bacteria consume
much more of the sugar,
producing lactic
and acetic acids,
which cause the sour taste.
Also...
The longer something ferments,
the more sour it's going
to taste in your mouth.
Settle down, bacteria.
- Really, really loud.
- [Record scratches]
Now that we have
our sour flavor,
we're ready for the final
stage of fermentation,
the proofing cabinet.
The heat is turned up here
so that the yeast can do its job,
helping the bread to rise.
Soon, the bread will
be twice its original size.
The loaves are left here
anywhere from one to four hours,
depending on the type of bread.
Before we bake our bread,
master baker Fernando
has one more thing to do...
Score the loaves.
It takes time, huh?
I didn't do so well.
It looks like a bear
got ahold of that,
just clawed its way
through that sourdough.
Let me see the master at work.
I need to make sure.
Fernando's only been doing
this since he was 16 years old.
That means what, 30 years here?
Almost 30 years.
UNGER: Wow. You really
score that very quickly.
Okay. Now, is this your
personal signature right here?
Yes, it is.
That's basically like Fernando
just tagged this bread.
At last, we're ready
to bake our sourdough.
Now, in the first few minutes,
the bread will begin to rise.
This is a phase
called oven spring.
And carbon-dioxide
gas will be released.
At 140 degrees,
the lactobacilli die
and the yeast dies.
Fermentation halts.
And then it'll soon be
time to eat the bread.
A watched loaf never bakes.
[Beeping]
And during baking,
the dough sets and becomes
our delicious, crusty bread.
After all this 72
hours of long process,
now we're ready
to sell our bread.
So the bread that we baked
that we started 72 hours ago...
Uh-oh... now we've
got to send it to the café.
So please help me
load up this basket
so we can get it in there.
Yeah. Come on.
- So you just put it in?
- We have to fill it up.
How much are you putting
into each one of these?
At least eight loaves.
Eight loaves. That
one's a little short.
We've got one more.
[Laughs]
Hey! [Laughs]
Right on! See that?
[Siren wails]
We're in Marblehead
Harbor, just outside of Boston.
And we're involved
in a training exercise
with the Ipswich
Fire Department.
We've got a man overboard,
and he needs to be rescued.
Rescued by a very unique boat.
That boat is a Ribcraft,
a rigid inflatable boat,
a vessel that can zoom
around like a speedboat,
carry us into any
kind of situation
without fear of
flooding or tipping over.
The rigid inflatable boat,
also known as a RIB,
gets its name from
its two basic parts...
The hard outer shell
and the oversized inner
tube that surrounds it.
So, what does it
take to assemble one?
We're here at Ribcraft in
Marblehead, Massachusetts,
to find out.
This is how we begin
to build our boat.
Now, we've got to build a hull,
and to do that, we use molds.
This is the mold
for the Ribcraft hull.
Workers apply several
layers to create a rigid shell,
but it starts with the gel coat.
The gel coat is
a polyester resin
that's waterproof and
virtually weatherproof.
This surface is also
impervious to U. V. rays.
This is just the outer layer,
the skin of the Ribcraft.
We've still got to add
another layer of support.
Think of it as the skeleton.
It's eight times as
thick as the gel coat
and made primarily
of fiberglass.
And when bonded together
with a mixture of
resin and a catalyst,
these elements combine
to make a single hard shell
that's tough and waterproof.
After six applications,
the coat of fiberglass
and resin is complete.
After drying overnight, our
layers of fiberglass and resin
are ready to be
lifted from the mold.
We'll affix some
chains to these,
drive some wedges under the lip.
And we will lift this out like
a cake coming out of a pan,
our deep-V hull.
The hull, all 600 pounds of it,
is carefully raised
from its mold.
At this point, the hull
is joined with the liner,
and our RIB looks like...
Well, just kind of like
a regular speedboat.
But not for long.
First, boatmakers trim and
sand away excess fiberglass.
Next, they add this
hinge here, the gusset.
Ribcraft's Matthew Velluto
shows me why the
gusset is so important.
You're putting these
tubes through a lot.
This is gonna keep
it from coming off?
The way that it works is it
allows the rigid fiberglass hull
to interact with a
soft, inflatable tube.
And the tube sits
right on top of this.
And what happens
is, it allows the tube
to move a little
bit and ride along.
If we didn't have this here
and we just put it right
on the hard fiberglass,
the tube would eventually start
to just peel itself
away from the hull.
So you're absorbing
the energy from the shock
that you're putting
these boats through.
The gusset is made of
Hypalon, a synthetic rubber
that is resistant
to rotting or tearing
and can last up to 30 years,
ideally suited for the
RIB's rescue missions.
We've assembled the
rigid part of the boat.
Now it's time for
the inflatable part.
This is the "I" in our R.I.B.
[Grunts]
This is what makes our boat
the darling of the
search-and-rescue community.
This is what gives our RIB
its incredible
stability, its buoyancy,
and its ability to handle all
kinds of extreme conditions.
Meet the inflatable tube.
First, we inflate the tube.
Then we add
handles and lifelines
as well as the rubstrake.
It's an extra strip of rubber
that's kind of
like a car bumper.
Like the gusset,
the tube is made of the
synthetic fabric Hypalon,
which is resistant
to tearing or rotting.
Here are the real
advantages of the tube.
The fabric can withstand the
roughest weather and water.
The tube increases
buoyancy and stability.
The soft, air-filled sides
allow the crew close contact
with people and other
boats in the water.
So, just how
sturdy is this tube?
The natural reaction is
to pound on it like this.
You know, if I took a knife
and I just put it
right through here,
could I sink this boat?
No.
One of the biggest
benefits to having a RIB
is you have a tube that has
seven different chambers
all the way around the tube.
So if you actually did
have the off chance
of puncturing the tube,
you wouldn't lose the
entire air-holding ability.
Before the tube can be attached,
workers have to
sand and clean it
to make sure there's
no rough spots.
So, the question is,
how do we get our
tube to stick to our boat?
We do it with this.
Pea soup.
What looks a
little like pea soup
is actually a kind of
high-powered glue
that will begin to
dry immediately.
So we have to
apply it in a hurry.
This is glue on steroids.
Did you guys do
this area right here?
Okay, I'll go back and
do this area over here.
All right. Should
we put that tube on?
Yeah, let's do it.
My turn to apply the tube
with director of operations
Matt Provenzano.
PROVENZANO: Okay,
the way this is gonna work
is we're gonna bond the
hull and the tube together.
These two guys
are our head tubers.
They've stuck several hundred
of these in the last few years.
You guys know what
you're doing, then.
They're gonna direct.
And our muscles
behind the operation
is this guy named Jeff.
UNGER: Jeff. Yeah!
What happens if
I make a mistake?
Well, if you make a mistake,
what we're gonna do is we're
gonna pull the tube back up.
We'll reactivate
the glue, restick it.
- You know what else I'd do?
- What's that?
Fire Jeff.
- We need him?
- We need him.
Okay. Jeff, let's
get on our tubes.
We're gonna do
this with the tube.
You got it. Flip it. Roger that.
I'll just hang out
over here, then.
Jeff, flip that tube.
- I'm ready.
- Okay.
Seriously, do you
need me to do anything?
Yeah, just lift that up.
Okay.
- Walk it over towards me.
- Yes.
Should probably have
a guy in the middle.
Oh, I see what you're doing.
Oh, it's just like flipping
your tube at home.
That's right.
It takes a team of
about five people
to make sure the tube
sits just right on the gusset.
PROVENZANO: And they'll
also tell you to move them back.
Up.
I want to do this the
right way the first time.
Tell me when to lower it.
- Come out.
- Come out.
And finally, the
tube is aligned.
And we're ready
for the next step...
Making sure the tube will
stay in place... permanently.
PROVENZANO: Basically,
what we want to do now
is apply weight down
the entire system.
And what is that weight
that you put on there?
Bodies.
So is this...
So their technology has become
very advanced over the years
in getting the tube
to stick to the boat.
Have you guys just
not come around
to creating a machine
that would do this?
There's just no substitute
for dropping your
[bleep] on the tube.
Because Ribcraft produces boats
of so many different
shapes and sizes,
they say that people
are a better fit for this job
than machines.
Oh, man.
So it's really part
boat-building, part rodeo.
Finally, the boat needs a
few last key components
before it's ready to go.
Workers put in the seats...
add the driver's station...
and hook up the wiring.
Then everything is fine-tuned
and our Ribcraft is done.
All right, gentlemen.
Let's put this boat in
the water, shall we?
Oh, yeah.
And what better way to prove
that a rigid inflatable
boat is ready for action
than this?
[Siren wailing]
Racing out over the open water
just like you would on a
real-life rescue mission.