Echoes of the Kon-Tiki

By way of introduction…

This article is an excerpt from an upcoming book about a drift voyage on a balsawood raft in the South Pacific. In addition to being a terrific story, there are many observations that are quite suitable for a newsletter about expats. The narrative by Torgeir Higraff is fascinating and compelling, especially in an age where many people are increasingly risk-averse.  

Background: In 1947, Thor Heyerdahl led the Kon-Tiki expedition, successfully sailing a balsa raft from South America to Polynesia in what was probably the most famous  drift voyage in history. In 2016, Torgeir Higraff set out to surpass that achievement by making a round trip, sailing from South America to Easter Island, then returning to South America. This excerpt is from mid-voyage. At the time of this segment, they were, as Thor Heyerdahl wrote in his book, “That means we’re 850 sea miles from the coast of Peru. … And we’ve got another 3,500 to go to get to the nearest islands. … And, to be quite precise, we’re 15,000 feet above the bottom of the sea and a few fathoms below the moon…. So now we all knew exactly where we were, and I could go on speculating as to why.” Torgeir Higraff, also, did a lot of speculating during his own long, watery journey.

Chapter 9 Raft Societies

"There is no such thing as society," declared Margaret Thatcher. I respectfully disagree with the Iron Woman. We had created our own societies, two of them. Life on Tupac Yupanqui and Rahiti Tane was the proof, and they were very different from each other. Although we left Peru as twin rafts, with identical construction and similar crew composition, our onboard societies evolved to become completely different. Why different societies? It can only be because of the individual personalities and onboard experiences among the crew members. 

I acknowledge though, that Margaret Thatcher was mostly right: As a Scandinavian with a sea-faring heritage, I believe that, ideally, everyone should live independent lives, have trust in themselves and their own skills, work without help, and define their identity without others. We on the Tupac were surely the type of men who would personify these ideals. On board this tiny balsawood raft which was sailing over our planet’s largest ocean, we seven could live just as we liked, enjoying the freedom, the sailing, and the nature around us. Just sail away, each living with our own thoughts. On the raft, we would live a life completely different from what we had at home on dry land in a larger, more complex society. Such a simple life at sea was something we seven wanted.

I acknowledge that this raft life is not for everybody. There are plenty of safe things to do on this planet. Sailing a raft on the Pacific is not one of them. If you are uncomfortable taking a bath by swimming in the ocean behind a raft as it moves away from you at two knots, then this life is not for you. Some may argue that it is dangerous to sit alone during a night watch on a raft. If this is your way of thinking, you would not be happy as a crew member on a balsawood raft drifting on the South Pacific. But, for those of us who chose it, this way of life was ideal. 

So how were we to create a new society that we were all happy with? How should we live together? For us on Tupac, we wanted as few rules as possible, preferring simply to define routines and tasks. On the raft, our shared goals defined the group actions, such as the adjustments of the guara boards and setting the sails. The tightening of the ropes that secured our mast required four men to cooperate in following carefully established procedures. Friendships helped to strengthen the tiny community. It was nice to be able to talk to an old friend about days past, about mutual friends and acquaintances. But it was just as interesting to listen to new stories from the crew members I met only recently – to get to know their lives and their experiences. 

Thor Heyerdahl had similar views in 1947 on the Kon-Tiki. He wrote, “Every man had his sphere of responsibility, and no one interfered with the others’ work. … There were few laws and regulations on board. … If an important decision was to be taken on board, we called a powwow in Indian style and discussed the matter before anything was settled.”

On the Tupac, we had the same style. Raft life at sea doesn’t change over a mere few decades. Life on the ocean is older and changes come slowly.

As part of the ambitious final plan for the Kon-Tiki2 expedition, we changed crews while on Easter Island. Some of the original crew members flew home and were replaced by a new group.

Thus, on the second leg of our voyage, to complete the loop and return to South America, a completely new society evolved. Our raft society on the Tupac had, four months after we left Peru, changed again with the new crewmembers. 

Now, after several weeks at sea, everyone already seemed confident in themselves and in the others. We all had regular work assignments, but we did these as we chose. Work done well brought praise. Praise is the lubricant of any society. 

In Tupac’s primitive raft society, you were not forced to be a social being. We avoided things that hampered our personal styles and our desires to act as we wished, but we still wanted honest corrections and reminders. With this in mind, we had declared one fixed time for a social event. On Tupac, we established this as a regular Saturday routine. 

"Do you know what day it is today?", I remember asking the crew the first pre-Easter Island Saturday on the raft, when everyone was gathered at lunchtime in the galley area to put food on their plates. Everyone knew the answer. Days of the week mean nothing at sea but it's nice to have a change of routine occasionally. 

Thus, Saturday afternoon was our group’s chosen time to be social. Three hours in the middle of the day were designated as a time for relaxing together, without work tasks. I picked up two bottles from the wine box, a 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon named “Armador”, which I personally choose weeks earlier when I was visiting the Odfjell vineyard in the Maipo valley in Chile. This wine’s name had a special meaning for me. I was also an Armador - Spanish for shipowner, or, more precisely, “a person who is dedicated to building ships”. 

"Bring the cups. Time to praise our sponsors!"

That first Saturday, with wine in our cups, things that had happened only two or three days before had already become legends. Then we talked about the time our two rafts almost collided. How was that possible? Wine fueled the endless speculation about the reasons. We relaxed now and relished these and other topics in our social time. 

"If someone a year ago had said that I would sail a raft on the Pacific, and almost collide with another raft, then I would have thought that they were on strong hallucinogens," one said.

Initially, Andrey experienced a greater cultural shock than the others, maybe because his Russian society was so different from Tupac's. Especially in the first weeks, Håkon, our Chief Technology Officer, needed help with all the technical challenges. But even though this was on Andrey's CV, we soon found he was no longer interested in the technical subjects he was trained in. Life on Tupac for Andrey meant shifting into what he really enjoyed. He had found a new and rewarding life as a crewman on a primitive raft.

The Saturday afternoon meeting was also a time when we could praise each other for small and big things that occurred during the last week. Ola was praised for the "Ola method". He had managed to create an autopilot after accurately calibrating the stern starboard guara’s effects. (His method worked well as long as the guaras did not break; then he had to calibrate again).

Håkon was praised for the huge media coverage he had arranged, for the reliable electrical power supply, for our internet access - and for the hundred kilos of wonderful oranges he brought from the market in Callao.

Andrey was praised for his blog and all the media coverage in Russia, and for his self-deprecating humor. For example, that first Saturday, he said he was surprised that life on the raft was so free. We had so few rules and commands, he said. Håkon and the rest of us were laughing. 

“Here, we do not have GULag such as you are used to! Do you miss your labor camp in Siberia?” Andrey laughed too. Håkon had referred to his favorite joke. Someone turned up the volume of our waterproof speaker and music from the Beatles filled the air. 

The conversation turned to nature. We talked about the large schools of golden Mahi Mahi under the raft occasionally, and the fantastic, magical mareel – a periodic luminous phenomenon in which large areas of seawater were glowing in varying shades of translucent blue and green. On those occasions, the mareel shown brightly enough to light up our faces as we watched.

We talked about the minke whales that greeted us a scant meter away from the raft before diving, and the sound and intervals of their breathing. “They swim like a WW2 torpedo!” Heyerdahl wrote of similar experiences with whales in 1947, how they would swim rapidly toward the Kon-Tiki as if they were going to ram it but always gliding under the raft at the last moment.

We talked about the small squids that jumped on the raft along with the occasional flying fish, how they tasted, and why we did not eat them. Someone said, "Pål wrote in a message that he got a huge squid on his hook while fishing. It had caused a stir when the arms rose up and the suckers attached to the bamboo deck, and it began to crawl on board".

One of the ladies on Rahiti had shouted, "Get it away from me, throw it back in the ocean!" 

In 1947, Thor Heyerdahl had similar concerns about giant squids. He wrote that experts had warned, “They had arms which could make an end of a big shark and set ugly marks on great whales, and a devilish beak like an eagle’s hidden among their tentacles. We were reminded that they lay floating in the darkness with phosphorescent eyes and that their arms were long enough to feel about in every small corner of the raft, if they did not care to come right on board. … On such nights we were sometimes scared when two round shining eyes suddenly rose out of the sea right alongside the raft and glared at us with an unblinking hypnotic stare.” 

But the only ones that came on board the Kon-Tiki were edible-sized. On Tupac, our squid were also of the smaller variety. But the fascination with monsters of the deep is as old as sea-faring. 

"Do you know what I think is the strangest thing we've done this week?" I asked. "Buying fish from a fishing boat!" We had caught so few fish the first weeks of the voyage that, when we encountered some curious Peruvian fishermen in mid-ocean, we got them to throw some Mahi Mahi down to us, in exchange for all our Peruvian coins. This was a delightful and delicious bartering experience but a personal defeat for me, the self-proclaimed Norwegian fishing expert.

And of course, the cockroach, the one who had joined us in Callao, was a recurring topic of conversation. Were there more? What if they multiplied on board? We shuddered. But the cockroach had been smashed upon discovery, and since then we had not found any of its kinsmen.

Next, we might bet on the duration of the voyage. The answers did not vary more than a week. The guys had probably listened to me, but added a few extra days for safety. Or they had listened to Håkon who, based on his assumptions about when we would arrive at Easter Island, had even confidently booked a plane ticket leaving from Easter Island to New York to celebrate Christmas there with his companion Karen. We were sailing on eleven balsa logs on the world's largest sea, crossing thousands of miles of open ocean…but the crew wagered they could predict to the minute when we would dock! 

However, this wagering gave us a common expectation that created unity; we all wanted to sail as fast as possible. No one wanted to take the sail down more than absolutely necessary for maintenance. Everyone cheered when Ola raised the idea of​creating a topsail. “We have lots of cotton tablecloths. A few more square meters at the top there will perhaps give us half a knot extra.”

It did. But the added topsail and a few other tricks made us sail too fast in comparison with the Rahiti. Again and again, we had to wait for the Rahiti team. Their captain chose reefing instead of making a top sail. Our two rafts developed different raft societies and even different sailing practices. But the twin rafts were making slow, steady progress together toward Easter Island.

The differences between raft societies continued to play an important role on the second leg back to South America.