The Norwegian anthropologist managed to achieve what many described as impossible and became a national hero. Thor Heyerdahl became famous, his book became a best-seller and his documentary even won an Oscar. On the 7th of August 1947, the Kon-Tiki ended its 7000km sail on the atoll of Raroia in French Polynesia. The vessel and crew came through many ordeals: from encounters with whales to endless calms and raging storms. The journey of the Kon-Tiki lasted 101 days. The raft was named after the Peruvian Sun god, the Kon-Tiki. They decided to use only materials that were available 2500 years ago, so they ended up with a raft made of balsa logs lashed together with natural ropes and powered by the very basic sail of the times.
They wanted to make an exact replica of the rafts the Inca people had used, so they based their design on the sketches from the early Spanish conquistadors. He found five Scandinavian comrades who believed in his theory and together they made their way to Peru where they began to plan the crossing of the Pacific Ocean. “If the wind, the current and the waves come from the east, then the people must have come from that direction as well.” He confidently stated and this soon became his life’s purpose: he wanted to prove that the first Polynesians arrived from South America. So as such, they should have come from the west, but the more Thor looked to the east, the more he thought that maybe the anthropologists had got it wrong. However, the commonly held theory at the time was that the Polynesians migrated from Asia. He listened to the old men telling stories about the god Tiki, who came from the sea, ‘where the sun rises’. He could not help but notice that the wind and waves were coming, relentlessly, from the east. In one of his books he describes how he sat for days on its eastern shore watching the waves crashing onto the cliffs.
He travelled frequently to the South Pacific and even lived for a while on the Marquesan island of Fatu Hiva. The mastermind behind this famous undertaking was Thor Heyerdahl, a Norwegian anthropologist who took a great interest in Polynesia and its origins. One of the greatest of these is surely the story of the raft Kon-Tiki. The history of the sea is peppered with many stories of great seamanship and inspired journeys.
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