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Preparations for the Kon Tiki expedition (c. 1947), peruvian newsreel showing the raft at the Port of Callao (in Spanish).. The main body of the float was composed of nine balsa tree trunks up to 14 m (45 ft) long, 60 cm (2 ft) in diameter, lashed together with 30 mm (1 + 1 ⁄ 4 in) hemp ropes.
The long-term buoyancy of balsa logs has been called into question. Prior to the voyage across the Pacific Ocean of the Kon-Tiki in 1947, scholars often argued that balsa logs absorb water so quickly that long voyages were infeasible. Heyerdahl, however, used green balsa wood logs for a voyage of 101 days on the Kon-Tiki.
In 1947 Heyerdahl and five fellow adventurers sailed from Peru to the Tuamotu Islands, French Polynesia in a raft that they had constructed from balsa wood and other native materials, christened the Kon-Tiki. The Kon-Tiki expedition was inspired by old reports and drawings made by the Spanish Conquistadors of Inca rafts, and by native legends ...
Similar accounts by Spanish chroniclers (e.g. Juan de Betanzos) describe Viracocha as a "white god", often with a beard. [25] The whiteness of Viracocha is however not mentioned in the native authentic legends of the Incas and most modern scholars therefore had considered the "white god" story to be a post-conquest Spanish invention. [26]
Like the Kon-Tiki, Rahiti Tane and Tupac Yupanqui were built from balsawood transported from Ecuador to SIMA, the Peruvian Army's shipyard in Callao, Lima. However, the Kon-Tiki2 rafts were different in several respects: Kon-Tiki had a rudder, while the Kon-Tiki2 rafts were steered by guara boards which allowed the rafts to be sailed in ...
The expedition was done so on a large raft, which was named Kon-Tiki in honor of the god Viracocha's "old name". It set sail from Trujillo, Peru. The Kon-Tiki expedition led to Heyerdahl writing a book titled "Kon-Tiki" followed by his documentary and more recently, a movie adaptation.
On 30 July 1947, Thor Heyerdahl and his six-man expedition aboard the raft Kon Tiki made their first sighting of land since departing Callao, Peru when they passed by Puka-Puka. The islands were devastated by a typhoon in 1996. However, with French assistance, Te One Mahina has been rebuilt. Puka-Puka Airport was inaugurated in 1979.
The Kon-Tiki Expedition: By Raft Across the South Seas (Norwegian: Kon-Tiki ekspedisjonen) is a 1948 book by the Norwegian writer Thor Heyerdahl. It recounts Heyerdahl's experiences with the Kon-Tiki expedition , where he travelled across the Pacific Ocean on a balsa tree raft.