A storm builds slowly, and Pi watches the ocean transform from manageable swells into mountainous waves with deep, dark troughs. He hurriedly brings in the solar stills and the net, then deploys both sea anchors at different lengths to steady the lifeboat as it climbs and plunges like a roller coaster.

The anchors hold, but they also pull the bow downward so that each crest explodes into foam and spray. A particularly forceful swell submerges the bow and swamps the lifeboat; hearing Richard Parker roar, Pi believes death is imminent and chooses the risk of the tiger over drowning. Pi jumps onto the tarpaulin and hooks it down to enclose Richard Parker, then squeezes under the remaining flap and struggles to secure the last hooks from inside as the boat pitches steeply upward.

At a near-vertical angle, the lifeboat breaks through a crest and tips forward; water and the unseen, soaking tiger surge toward Pi under the pitch-black tarpaulin. Pi is half-drowned as the lifeboat continues to rise and fall for hours, until terror becomes monotonous and Pi goes numb, holding on while the tarpaulin beats Pi, cold water churns through, and bones and turtle shells bruise and cut him amid Richard Parker’s constant snarling.

During the night the storm ends, and Pi sees a starry, cloudless sky through a tear before undoing the tarpaulin. At dawn Pi realizes the raft is gone, leaving only two tied oars and a life jacket; the loss devastates Pi’s morale even though the sea anchors remain attached. The lifeboat is damaged, the tarpaulin is torn (some tears from Richard Parker’s claws), and much food has been lost or ruined, though the precious water bags survive because the net and partly deflated solar stills prevented them from shifting.

Pi, sore and cut, opens the stern and finds Richard Parker alive; the tiger stirs, growls, and sits on the stern bench. Pi mends the tarpaulin and later bails water with a bucket tied to a rope while Richard Parker watches with bored distraction. In the process, Pi recovers a critical item: the last of the orange whistles, which Pi recognizes as what still stands between him and death.