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Odds & Ends
The Tangaroa

By Jim Plunkett

There is something about Peru that attracts the adventurous, be they conquerors, explorers, or tourists. Thor Hyerdahl is an adventurer who was conquered by the mysteries harboured along the Peruvian coast that were never documented due to pre-Colombian and Inca cultures that never left a written word.

Having seen drawings of ocean going rafts supposedly used to connect distant cultures, Hyerdahl decided to challenge the theories and imitate the early Pacific navigators. On April 28th, 1947, he set sail from Lima's port of Callao on a raft made from Ecuadorian balsa logs and a crew of six, arriving on the Polynesian island of Tahiti 93 days later. He was able to prove that a voyage of more than 4,500 miles across the Pacific was feasible and that the pre-Colombians, amongst others, had been able to cross cultures.

PAPYRUS RAFT
Thor Hyerdahl tried again in 1969 after building a 45 ft. papyrus raft called the Ra I. He employed natives from the Burundi tribe in Chad, Central Africa, and launched from the shores of Morocco with the idea of reaching Bermuda. 3,000 miles later, the stern started breaking up, and it had to be abandoned. A later model, more resistant, called the Ra II, was built and sailed 4,000 successfully to Bermuda in only 57 days. This provided proof that earlier contacts between civilizations could easily have been made.

LUST FOR ADVENTURE
With a continued lust for adventure, he built a larger raft in 1978 to prove human ties that must have been established amongst Mesopotamian cultures. With the assistance of the same Bolivian Indian craftsmen that had successfully been contracted to build the Ra II, he set off with a crew of 11 and sailed the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean during five months. Upon arrival at the entrance to the Red Sea, he was forbidden to part from the port of Djibouti due to a series of wars in the area, and in protest, he put fire to his great raft, the Tigris, and headed home. He now resides in northern Peru.

This year, on the same date, April 28th and almost 60 years after his successful voyage, Thor´s grandson, together with four other Norwegians, a Swede, and a Peruvian naval officer set out to pay tribute to Thor Hyerdahl. They intended to follow his ripples and waves with the same island of Raroia as their destination. The distance is some 4,500 nautical miles from Callao. The trip was sponsored by the Oslo Museum.

TANGAROA
The raft was baptized the Tangaroa after one of the sons of the Maori god, Rangi (the heavens), and Papa (mother Earth). The hand -crafted balsa raft has three times the area of the Kon Tiki, and with a weight 2,000 kilos (2 tons, approx.). It was decided to install two wooden keel plates in the stern similar to those used by pre-Colombian mariners. This enabled them to maintain a truer course across the Pacific along what is called the "maximum circle" from Peru to the Polynesia. Considerably more prepared than Thor Hyerdahl´s raft, the Tangaroa counted with satellite communications, which enabled the men to transmit a log of their daily progress and adventures to an international audience that followed their every step.

Between the aid of the double keels, the vast sailing experience of the young crew, and with the gods of good weather hovering above, they were able to beat the Kon Tiki by 30 days. The most dangerous part of the entire trip was as they approached the Tuamoto Archipelago near Tahiti, where the Kon Tiki ended up shipwrecked in 1947. Thanks to the keels, they were able to manoeuvre the Tangaroa in these rough waters with waves up to six meters high and make it on schedule to Tahiti without repeating history.

PERUVIAN POTATOES
Aboard they carried 71 barrels of drinking water, modern navigational equipment, a sack of dehydrated potatoes prepared in Inca fashion that was a gift of the Peruvian Navy. The U.S. Army supplied other food rations. Flying fish jumped over the deck at moments, and a meal of fresh fish became quite commonplace.

Part of the responsibility of the crew was to measure the contamination levels of the Pacific, and various depth samples were taken along route including the dissection of fish bellies and analyses to determine contaminants and anomalies amongst the fauna.

CHANCE VISIT
I was vaguely familiar with this new adventure towards the end of April. By chance, I was visiting the port of Callao with U.S. visitors who wanted to do some sightseeing. When I called my friend, a retired admiral of the Peruvian Navy, and told him of our coordinates, he said we had ten minutes to get down to the dock at La Punta and join him and the Peruvian cadets and public that were to bid good luck to the adventurers. It was truly an historic occasion and we were thrilled to be within inches of the Tangaroa in the bay, talking to the crew as the Coast Guard hauled them out to the currents.

Upon arrival at Raroia, a similar group of anxious islanders, several of whom who had welcomed Thor Hyerdahl 60 years ago, greeted the crew and celebrated in true Polynesian fashion, as they proved that the sea has been uniting cultures much before the silver jets and Internets ever appeared.
Check: http://tangaroa.nettblogg.no/espaol.html

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