Santiago Terrazago's Akali raft experiment

Santiago Terrazago designed the Akali raft experiment to test a single hypothesis: that human violence is primarily driven by sexual competition. On May 12th 1973 he set 10 people ("10 people") aboard a raft to drift from Spain to Mexico for 101 days ("101 days"), provisioning and rationing food in advance. He selected a deliberately diverse, attractive group (six women and four men) including a 'hunkish priest', put women in key roles (captain, diver, radio operator), and required a contract that allegedly forced participants to 'give their souls bodies and minds'.

Santiago's methods were voyeuristic and manipulative: private weekly questionnaires asked questions such as 'Who would you most like to sleep with?' and 'Who do you want to kill?'. He expected danger, sexual rivalry, and escalating violence; instead footage and participant testimony show increasing camaraderie, shared intimate confessions, and practical cooperation. Occurrences Santiago misread as proof of impending violence—like cutting up a caught shark—were, per the video, ordinary survival acts.

Tension peaked when Servein Zenati, the assigned diver, fixed a broken rudder after Santiago forbade her to go overboard; his retaliation escalated to public readings of private questionnaire answers and racist prompting (calling the sole Black woman 'primitive' and saying 'It was natural.'). Press coverage branded the voyage the 'sex raft' and the associated university immediately severed ties with Santiago.

A storm and near-collision with a freighter exposed practical leadership: Maria, the Swedish captain Santiago had briefly usurped, successfully coordinated signals and saved the raft, restoring her authority. After these events Santiago withdrew; participants bonded more tightly, arrived at their destination as friends, and violence never materialized. The narrator concludes the experiment was unscientific, manipulative, and failed to demonstrate Santiago's core claim—instead producing enduring social solidarity among participants.