Heyerdahl manuscript with new knowledge handed over to the Kon-Tiki Museum

An original manuscript by Thor Heyerdahl is donated to The Kon-Tiki Museum by The Norwegian News Agency NTB. This was written just days before the departure of the Kon-Tiki expedition in 1947.

It was published in some Norwegian newspapers in 1947 and is about the preparations of the legendary voyage and why Peru was chosen as departure point. Could it be that this also was the speech on the Christening of the balsa wood raft?

 Curator of the museum Reidar Solsvik received the document from Project leader Solveig Vikene in NTB.

- In the past it was practice to put all documents about a public figure together with the photographs of the person, explains project manager Solveig Vikene in NTB's image agency, who found the document a few years ago.

The document had then been in the photo archive since it was typed in Peru in 1947. On Friday, she donated the eight sheets to the Kon-Tiki Museum.

The article "Why we build a balsa raft, and why we start from Peru" was written just before setting sail from Peru on 28 April 1947. The raft named Kon-Tiki set course for the Polynesian islands. The ground support at Raroia atoll in Polynesia after 101 days in the open sea.

Heyerdahl had thus disproved the theories of those who claimed that such a journey was impossible, writes the Kon-Tiki Museum about the famous adventurer and scientist.

Overwater or not

In the document, Heyerdahl touches on, among other things, a possible problem with stormwater on the raft, which was discussed during construction:

"Even if the raft does not stick out many inches above the sea, experience has shown that it will follow the prevailing, elongated swells without taking on excess water," he writes.

- I never knew that he was aware that it was like that, says curator Reidar Solsvik at the Kon-Tiki Museum.

Heyerdahl was clearly not believed in this, because the raft was constructed with planks in front as a kind of bow.

- The only thing they did was that they slowed down, says Solsvik.

 The document is now a part of the Thor Heyerdahl UNESCO listed archive at the museum.