A boat made of reed reeds, built by Bolivian Aymaras and moved only by the trade winds, crossed the Atlantic Ocean between Africa and America now 56 years on a journey that lasted two months.
Of the eight members of that adventure called «RA II», captained by the legendary Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl, famous for his Kon-Tiki expedition of 1947, there is no one left alive.
Heyerdahl chose the Moroccan port of Safi as the starting point for his reed boat because it is one of the oldest documented ports in Africa, built by the Phoenicians. six centuries before Christ.
THE TRAIL OF THE EGYPTIAN NAVIGATORS
That trip that actually began a year before, in 1969, with a first failed attempt because The first ship sank in the middle of the Atlantic.
Heyerdahl was very interested in the similarities between the civilizations of Ancient Egypt and those of Mesoamerica, such as sun worship and mummification of corpsesand intrigued by the discovery of remains of archaeological objects from the ancient Egyptians in the Atlantic.
To demonstrate the existence of contacts between the civilizations of both continents and reclaim the knowledge of Antiquity that modern science underestimated, the Norwegian adventurer decided to build a papyrus boatwhich he baptized with the name RA, in tribute to the god of the sun in Egyptian mythology, to undertake his journey across the Atlantic.
The ship of the first attempt (RA I), was literally built in front of the pyramids in Egypt before the cameras of journalists from around the world, and later taken to the Moroccan port of Safi, but sank in the Atlantic after completing more than half of the journey.
Clinging to his dream, Heyerdahl ordered the construction a second papyrus boatthis time in the same city of Safi, with the collaboration of the Moroccan authorities but almost secretly to avoid the previous media noise.
Con 15 tons of papyrus imported from the sources of the Nile in Ethiopia, Heyerdahl brought to five Aymara workers from the Lake Titicaca region of Bolivia (where the art and craft of reed, the first cousin of papyrus, survives), who in six weeks They built the RA II, a stronger and shorter ship than the first, 15 meters long and 6 meters wide.
A MULTINATIONAL CREW
In addition to the Norwegian and the Moroccan Mohamed Ait Ouhanni, the crew was made up of different nationalities and religions: the Mexican Santiago Genovés, the American Norman Baker, the Italian Carlo Mauri, the Russian Yuri Senkevich, the Egyptian Georges Sourial and the Japanese Kei Ohara.
Each member had a specific mission: the Russian was the crew doctor; the Egyptian, the diver who controlled the keel of the ship; the American, the navigation specialist and the Italian controlled the rigging and sail.
The Mexican was in charge of provisions and food rationing, the Japanese was the team’s cameraman, and the Moroccan’s mission was to observe and record ocean pollution.
English was the common language and everyone lived together in coordination and perfect harmony, thus fulfilling one of the Norwegian explorer’s objectives of sending a message to the world about «living together» in a context marked then by the growing waves of racism.
Another purpose of the expedition was ecological: Heyerdahl I wanted to denounce pollution of the oceans in a report that he had presented to the UN, and which allowed him to place the RA II ship under the organization’s celestial flag.
A DUCK, A MONKEY AND EIGHT MEN
The journey replicated as much as possible the boat trips of the ancient Egyptians: the crew took a duck and a monkey on boardthey stored meat, fish and nuts, eggs and artisanal bread in clay containers, and water in the skin of sheep.
They also experienced different adventures: spotted sharks and whalesthey suffered cold and heat, but the most serious thing was when one of the innumerable storms destroyed their rudder, or when they had to cut part of the bow and stern to guarantee the flotation of the boat.
Finally one day the rock dove who was traveling with the expedition left the ship and did not return, which was a good sign: the land was close.
On July 12, 1970, after having crossed 6,400 kilometers, The RA II arrived at its destination in Barbados, where it was received with all honors by the inhabitants of the island, led by the governor general himself, Winston Scott.
The RA II is currently stored in the Kon-Tiki museum in Oslo, which collects all the boats and objects treasured by Tohr Heyerdahl throughout his adventurous life.
EFE Agency.
GML
