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Nick Walker

Thor Heyerdahl's grandson steers a balsa-raft project designed to recreate the historic 1947 sea voyage

AS FAR AWAY from the coast of Norway as is geographically possible, a crew of five Norwegians, a Swedish filmmaker, a Peruvian mariner and a parrot are crossing  the Pacific on their way from Peru to Tahiti on a balsa raft that looks more suited for drifting across calm fjords.

On April 28, these hardy souls began retracing the epic voyage made in 1947 by Norwegian maritime legend and anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl.

The 1947 crossing was made on the Kon-Tiki raft, named after an Inca sun god, and now an exhibit at the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo. Its 2006 successor is named Tangaroa, after a Polynesian sea god. And, almost 60 years on, there is another Heyerdahl aboard - 29-year-old Olav, the late Thor Heyerdahl's grandson.

'I had to say yes to this expedition, to satisfy my sense of adventure,' Mr Heyerdahl told reporters last year at the Kon-Tiki museum. The younger Heyerdahl - a carpenter, building engineer and diver - led the construction of the 16 x 8 metre Tangaroa, and is 'chief of repairs' as the vessel proceeds towards  French Polynesia.

The project has generated a great deal  of  media coverage in Norway and the rest of the world.

At a news conference the late adventurer's son, Thor Heyerdahl Jr, said his father would have been delighted about the expedition.

'We have seen this project grow from just an idea, a dream, into a thrilling reality,' said filmmaker and crewman Anders Berg.

Hopes are high that the endeavour, and Berg's role in it, will yield a sequel worthy of the Oscar-wining documentary that captured the original Kon-Tiki adventure.

Tangaroa set sail from the Peruvian port of El Callao, just as the Kon-Tiki did almost 60 years ago.

The project, originally set for last year to tie in with Norway's centennial celebration of its 1905 independence from Sweden, was delayed by several months after key sponsors diverted funds to help victims of the 2004 Asian tsunami.

The  US$900,000 venture is backed by the Norwegian Environment Ministry, private businesses and Heyerdahl's hometown of Larvik.

The original Kon-Tiki - inspiration for the present trip - was equipped with a rudimentary sail and was unable to navigate against the wind. It travelled across the Pacific for 101 days in 1947, covering 7,884km, before running aground on the coral reef of the Tuamotu atoll of Raroia, where the voyage ended.

The Tangaroa crew expect their journey to be of a similar duration.

The purpose of the Kon-Tiki undertaking was to prove the possibility of Heyerdahl's theory that the South Pacific islands were settled by ancient mariners from South America. Heyerdahl, who died in 2002 at the age of 87, penned his account of the voyage in the 1950 global best-seller, Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific by Raft,  a story of high adventure on the South Seas that captured the world's imagination.

The Tangaroa crew hopes to reach land in French Polynesia in July or August. They will conduct scientific investigations along the way, paying 'special attention to ocean pollution and its effects on the reproductive abilities of plants and animals in the Pacific Ocean'.

The crew is also testing new theories on ancient navigational techniques.

'The Kon-Tiki is one of the world's best-known expeditions,' said crew member Torgeir Saeverud Higraff, a teacher and journalist. 'We want to carry on Heyerdahl's tradition, and honour the great man.'

Mr Higraff, 31, said changes in the environment presented a challenge even before the project could get started:  much of the rainforest in Peru, where Heyerdahl harvested his balsa logs, is gone.

Starting last December, the team was forced to source their balsa in Ecuador.

The Tangaroa configuration comprises eight crossbeams lashed to 11 balsa logs and covered by a bamboo deck. Its sail is three times bigger than those that powered the Kon-Tiki across the same stretch of ocean.

The Tangaroa crew has fitted a thatched-reed roof made by Aymara Indians atop a hardwood cabin. A large, square sail of woven Peruvian cotton has been mounted on the Tangaroa. 'Such sails were common in prehistoric Peru, Mr Higraff said, 'and much better than Thor Heyerdahl could have imagined in 1947.'

Although the Tangaroa appears to be a relatively primitive vessel, and will be manoeuvred through the high seas using a technique dating back to ancient South American navigators, the expedition will also benefit from some of the advantages of the latest 21st-century technology.

The cabin roof will house solar panels to generate onboard electricity, and the raft will be equipped with back-up satellite navigation and communications. Non-participants who wish to experience this thrilling undertaking vicariously - an audience that includes a large proportion of Norway's population of 4.6 million - can turn to the expedition's website, www.tangaroa.no, to read the latest transmissions from the intrepid Scandinavians.

By comparison, the smaller Kon-Tiki carried only the most basic equipment, even by 1947 standards; all the better for delivering a true-life yarn that has captivated generations around the world.

The original expedition carried risks that can be avoided with today's technology.

The purpose of the Tangaroa voyage, however, is not an attempt 'to simply copy old feats', the Kon-Tiki Museum website asserts.

'Instead, the crew wish to carry new knowledge out to sea. Among other goals, they hope to show that balsa rafts really can be steered with the aid of small keels [centreboards] at the sides of the raft. Using these, they believe they can show that one can steer against the wind.

'The original Kon-Tiki raft also had centreboards but these were not actively used to change heading. It was only after the Kon-Tiki expedition that Thor Heyerdahl discovered what these centreboards were really for,' Mr Higraff said.



Olav the intrepid takes lead role in Kon-Tiki saga sequel