The Old Improbable Island Wiki

The FailBoat is the The Watcher's customized pleasure yacht, cruising just off the coast of Improbable Island. It serves as her base of operations and includes the offices from which she monitors events on the Island and her other favorite Reality TV shows. The FailBoat is also currently Sinking.

Prior to Season One, the Watcher based her operations in a physical location called Despair. She was unhappy with this arrangement since gawking tourists kept dropping by to snap photographs and generally disrupting the daily operations. Now, based on a mobile platform, the Watcher enforces an exclusive access policy.

Access to the FailBoat is limited to contestants who have failed miserably in jungle fights. Such failures don't make for a very good TV show, so the Watcher's minions haul those contestants to the FailBoat overnight for 'retraining.' Retraining mostly consists of letting the contestants jump into cages of monsters, kept as pets because the Watcher likes their particularly vicious natures, below the decks. There, contestants can build up 'favor' by amusing the Watcher.¹⁾ In these retraining sessions, the contestants are driven mostly by adrenaline and rage - contestants who need a booster can ask for additional shots of adrenaline from the Watcher, but she finds this kind of behavior to be particularly needy and penalizes contestants for it.

Contestants who build up enough favor may be allowed to enter the Watcher's office and ask for a benefit:

• 25 Favor: Camera Poke. Build up 25 favor points, and the Watcher will let you run one of her remote controlled cameras. She particularly likes when you use the camera to poke another player in the arse.²⁾ If you want some revenge on a contestant, this is the way to go.³⁾
• 100 Favor: Release from the FailBoat. Build up 100 favor points, and you can ask the Watcher to return you to the Island immediately.
• 500 Favor: Watcher's Blessing. Build up 500 favor points, and you can ask the Watcher to tune up your equipment. If you ask for the Watcher to bless your armor, it will reflect partial damage back at monsters during jungle fights. if you ask the Watcher to bless your weapon, it will regenerate part of your life points during jungle fights.⁴⁾⁵⁾⁶⁾

Contestants who survive a night on the FailBoat are dumped back on the Island come daybreak, usually in the Outpost of the Jungle they were fighting in, or to Improbable Central if they were traveling.

The Watcher also offers a weekly champagne cruise on the FailBoat, where audience members from around the world can enjoy fine food and wine while touring around the coast of the Island.⁷⁾⁸⁾

For contestants, there is an unofficial⁹⁾ cocoa stand.