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Adrift in the Pacific

Thor Heyerdahl: The Kon-Tiki man

“One learns more from listening than speaking. And both the wind and the people who continue to live close to nature still have much to tell us which we cannot hear within university walls.

Thor Heyerdahl

WHEN

1947

ENDEAVOUR

Floating across the empty Pacific Ocean on a raft built using only materials available 1,000 years ago.

HARDSHIPS & DANGERS

Thor Heyerdahl and his crew were putting themselves utterly at the mercy of the capricious Pacific Ocean. They did not know if they would face storms, waves or would simply get lost without a trace.

LEGACY

The voyage of the Kon-Tiki spectacularly proved an anthropological point: that ancient societies could have sailed from South America westwards to colonize the islands of the southern Pacific Ocean.

Thor Heyerdahl (foreground) on Easter Island in 1986.

The story of one of modern history’s greatest achievements in exploration is rooted in a very personal tragedy. Bjarne Kroepelien, a well-to-do wine merchant from Norway, had a lifelong obsession with the islands of the southern Pacific Ocean. He travelled to the area in his twenties and fell in love with the daughter of a Tahitian tribal leader. The pair were married but their union was to end bitterly when Tuimata, his wife, was one of the victims of a Spanish Flu epidemic on the island in 1918. The heartbroken merchant returned to Oslo and the family business. He never again visited Tahiti but his love for the islands, their culture and their people lived on. Over the years Kroepelien amassed the world’s largest collection of Polynesian literature — more than 5,000 books in total.

His collection was to have a remarkable legacy — one that was the change the way anthropologists understood the spread of humankind. Thor Heyerdahl, a zoology student at the University of Oslo, gained access to Kroepelien’s archive and pored over the texts within. These studies led Heyerdahl to a radical theory about how the Polynesian islands were settled. The mainstream academic understanding was that the islands of the south Pacific had been settled by peoples travelling east by sea from Asia. Heyerdahl believed it would also have been possible for settlers to travel west from South America.

Exodus across the Pacific

It was Heyerdahl’s opinion that the famous stone moai statues of Easter Island bore a closer resemblance to the ancient people of South America than to the inhabitants of east Asia. He posited that an Easter Island myth about a battle between two feuding tribes could have been based on actual conflict between settlers from the two continents. Heyerdahl went further, claiming the South American migrants could have travelled further, all the way to the Polynesian islands in the South Pacific.

There was one particularly sizeable and obvious problem with Heyerdahl’s theory; the distance from South America to Easter Island was vast. The remote island was more than 3,700 km (2,300 miles) from Peru, the most likely departure point in Heyerdah’s view. The Polynesian island of Tahiti was a further 4,200 km (2,600 miles) distant. Any journey from the Peruvian coast would have involved months of travel across the Pacific Ocean. Modern maps showed the South Sea Islands as tiny pin pricks in the vastness of the planet’s biggest expanse of open water. Could the ancient travellers have found their way?

A theory that travellers from the east could have settled remote Easter Island inspired the Kon-Tiki expedition.

Putting an idea to the test

Heyerdahl decided there was only one way to find out. Following the end of the Second World War, he started planning his own voyage from the coast of Peru to the islands of Polynesia, using only materials and building techniques which would have been available more than one thousand years earlier. Heyerdahl assembled a crew of five fellow Scandinavians to join him on the journey, each bringing a particular set of skills to the mission. The first to sign up was Herman Watzinger, an engineer who would chart the seas the vessel sailed on and measure meteorological data. Knut Haugland and Torstein Raaby were radio experts who would make and maintain contact with a land-based support crew and any nearby vessels. Bengt Danielsson was the expedition’s ‘fixer’, arranging equipment for the build of the raft and provisions for the team’s time at sea. Erik Hesselberg was a childhood friend of Heyerdahl and, perhaps surprisingly, the only professional sailor chosen for the trip. He served as navigator and later used his artistic skills to create a children’s picture book about the adventure.

Puka-Puka Atoll, the first land sighted by the Kon-Tiki crew since leaving Peru.

The team travelled to Peru and set about their work. As a point of reference, the team turned to hand drawings made by the Spanish Conquistadores, who were among the first Europeans to land in Peru. Their illustrations of the traditional sailing craft used by the indigenous people of the region served as a guide for the Scandinavian team’s raft.

The handmade raft

The team used only materials which could be found locally. Balsa wood, exceptionally light and easy to shape, was used for the main body with strips of pine to provide support. A cabin made of weaved bamboo, 4 m (13 ft) long and 2.5 m (8 ft) wide, would be home for the six sailors during their expedition. The thick leaves of the banana tree were used to roof the cabin and more bamboo was plaited together to form a sail. The mast, nearly 9 m (30 ft) high, was made from sturdy mangrove wood. Rope made from hemp was used to lash the craft together.

The result was a wooden float which may have looked somewhat ramshackle but was, in fact, the result of great care and attention to detail. Over a period of several weeks, the crew had tested various combinations of locally-grown materials before settling on the components which would allow them to create a craft that was large enough to withstand the high ocean but also easy to manoeuvre and repair. The craft was named ‘Kon-Tiki’ an ancient name for the Incan sun-god, and plans were made for a launch in the autumn of 1947.

The Kon-Tiki was well stocked in preparation for a lengthy spell at sea. Canned goods and water containers were provided by the US military. Traditional water-holding containers were also taken so the crew could test their efficiency and usefulness.

‘I jumped on board the raft,’ wrote Heyerdahl in his account of the journey, ‘which looked an utter chaos of banana clusters, fruit baskets, and sacks which had been hurled on board at the very last moment and were to be stowed and made fast.’

The Kon-Tiki, which sailed nearly 7,000 km (4,350 miles) across the Pacific.

Drifting into the endless blue

The mood among the crew was incredibly relaxed given the potentially perilous nature of the journey ahead. In fact, Heyerdahl alone was on board when the Kon-Tiki was pulled out to open sea by a tug boat on 28 April 1947, his fellow sailors being otherwise engaged in last-minute errands.

‘Erik and Bengt came sauntering down to the quay with their arms full of reading matter and odds and ends,’ wrote Heyerdahl. ‘They met the whole stream of people on its way home and were finally stopped at a police barrier by a kindly official who told them there was nothing more to see. Bengt told the officer … that they had not come to see anything they themselves were going with the raft.

‘It’s no use,’ the officer said indulgently.

‘The Kon-Tiki sailed an hour ago.’

‘Impossible,’ said Erik, producing a parcel. ‘Here’s the lantern!’

‘And there’s the navigator,’ said Bengt, ‘and I’m the steward.’

Fortunately a boat had been sent back for the missing crewman and the six were united at the mouth of the port.

The distance to their destination was daunting, but Heyerdahl’s confidence was high and grounded in two key geographic factors which he believed would be crucial to the expedition’s success. The first was the Humboldt Current, a river of unusually cold water in the ocean, which originated off the Peruvian coast and flowed west for a considerable but unmeasured distance. The second was the prevailing trade winds, which blew from east to west and should aid the Kon-Tiki on its way.

The most remarkable thing about the Kon-Tiki’s journey was just how uneventful it was to be. The weather was kind, they made good progress on the Humboldt Current and sea life congregated round the raft, which made for a plentiful supply of food and hydration.

Land ahoy

On 30 July, the crew of the Kon-Tiki sighted land — the Puka-Puka atoll in what is now known as the Cook Islands. Five days later, they engaged with residents of Angatau Island but were unable to steer the raft in to land. On August 7, their journey ended when the Kon-Tiki was beached on a coral reef near the uninhabited islet near Raroia Atoll. The Kon-Tiki had been at sea for 100 days and travelled nearly 7,000 km (4,350 miles). Thor Heyerdahl had proved his point.

‘Land! An island! We devoured it greedily with our eyes and woke the others, who tumbled out drowsily and stared in all directions as if they thought our bow was about to run onto a beach. Screaming seabirds formed a bridge across the sky in the direction of the distant island, which stood out sharper against the horizon as the red background widened and turned gold with the approach of the sun and the full daylight.’

Heyerdahl devoted the rest of his life to examining the way ancient civilizations moved around the Earth. He died, aged 87, in 2002. While anthropologists continue to research and debate how the islands of the South Pacific were populated, the extraordinary voyage of the Kon-Tiki is evidence that Heyerdahl’s theory, however, unlikely, was at least possible.

Heyerdahl wrote to the British Commissioner in Rarotonga, confirming the Kon-Tiki’s safe arrival on Polynesia.

‘Civilization grew in the beginning from the minute that we had communication — particularly communication by sea that enabled people to get inspiration and ideas from each other and to exchange basic raw materials.’