The Leap Home (1) - November 25, 1969 - S3-E1
Trivia: Sam's childhood home is Ray and Annie's farmhouse from the movie Field of Dreams, complete with the front porch swing. In another shot showing morning on the farm, the baseball field from the film is visible. Both the television show and film were distributed by Universal Pictures, so it's likely the show had access to unused footage from the film.
The Leap Home (2) - April 7, 1970 - S3-E2
Trivia: Patrick Warburton's first major role and his second acting credit. Warburton plays "Blaster."
Answer: Sam threw items off the raft to lighten the load, so it wouldn't sink, in doing so he made the raft less heavy. Which made easier to float with the currents, if it was heavy the raft would have moved slower and not moved so far.
Except that Al said that immediately after throwing stuff out of the boat four hours passed and it was shown that they didn't really move from where they were. They were still in the same spot. Forgot to ask this too. When Sam and Vanessa are stranded on the island, one of them, can't remember who, did something and when Al appears, he tells them that because of it, time had suddenly skipped several more hours and if the event hadn't been interrupted, they would have been rescued by a boat. So, what happened on the island that once again caused time to speed up? It seems kind of strange that time could move so quickly on the island, especially since it was still day time and it never showed any sort of changes like the sun or clouds moving.