Thirsty and hungry, Pi pulls himself along the rope to the lifeboat to raid the locker while watching Richard Parker under the tarpaulin. As he works, Pi realizes the tethered raft acts as a sea anchor: when the raft is let out, its drag turns the lifeboat to face the wind, keeping the boat steadier and reducing side-to-side rolling. Pi notices Richard Parker growling with seasickness, and Pi understands this advantage may help Pi control distance and safety.

Pi watches cockroaches abandon the lifeboat and get eaten by fish, until even the last large roach flies out to its death. Pi reflects that nearly all other life on the boat has been wiped out, leaving only Pi and Richard Parker. Pi opens the locker without provoking the tiger and discovers Richard Parker has claimed the boat’s floor as territory, marked by a strong urine smell, and that rainwater has pooled there as a shallow “pond.”

Pi eats emergency rations, then—desperate to conserve his own water—steals several beakers of the pooled rainwater near Richard Parker’s paws and drinks it despite its discoloration. When Pi urinates from the drink, Pi resists drinking the urine, but uses it to mark territory by splashing it onto the tarpaulin and locker lid, trying to claim space above Richard Parker’s area.

Turning to longer-term survival, Pi finds and sets up the lifeboat’s twelve solar stills, inflating and filling them with seawater and stringing them together between lifeboat and raft. Pi then improves the raft by tightening knots and converting an oar into a short mast with drilled holes and lines, adding a life jacket for flotation and a slightly raised seat, and rigging a blanket canopy for shade and storage lines.

As afternoon ends, Pi takes water, tools, rations, and blankets onto the raft, closes the locker softly, and lets the lifeboat drift away on the measured ropes. While Pi eats and watches sunset, Richard Parker sits up and looks toward Pi. A splash reveals a vast, busy world of phosphorescent plankton and fast-moving fish beneath the raft, which Pi compares to a glowing city. With this new sense of abundance and a hard-won calm, Pi falls asleep.