On Sat, Jul 2, 2011 at 10:25 AM, Gunnar Sillén <[email protected]> wrote: > More on the Kon-Tiki > > In the mid 19th century not many westerners could imagine that ”primitive” > non-Europeans were able to travel the high seas long before Columbus. Deep > sea sailing was believed to demand a ”developed” culture to be invented and > dared. > > Therefore the Norwegian adventurer Tor Heyerdal was met with much > scepticism when he launched a theory that Polynesia might have been > populated through a direct migration from South America. He pointed at winds > and streams leading constantly from the South American west coast to the > Polynesian islands and at great similarities between pre historic sculptures > in both places. To prove the theory he had a native raft, a so called > ”balsa”, built in Peru following 16th century descriptions and with no > modern (metallic) strengthenings. Together with four friends from the > allied war training camp ”Little Norway” (started in Canada) and a Swedish > ethnologist, he sailed off from Callao on the 28th of April 1947. The raft > was named Kon-Tiki after an Inca divine personality who following the > ancient myth had to flee over the ocean together with his closest after a > hostile attack from neighbours. > > Heyerdahl and his friends sailed and drifted 7000 kilometers and landed > after 101 days on the island Ravoia, where the polynesians showed such an > interest in the raft. Even if they had never seen a vessel of this type they > already knew it and had a name for it as it well followed descriptions in > the myth telling how their ancestors had come to the islands. > > The book that Heyerdahl wrote (1948) on the expedition became a bestseller > and the documentary film from the journey got an Academy award in 1951. I > was a quite young boy at that time, but still remember how impressed I was > when seeing the film in the cinema together with my parents. > > Even if Heyerdahls theory on migration still is not so accepted, he > managed to show that pre historic native crafts were good enough for > tranocean crossings. It has made it easier for us to understand that even > stone age peoples could sail the seas. Only that they did not need the > growing amount of safety gadgets that later generations don´t dare to live > without. > > As I stated already in my earlier posting, this paper model downloaded from > the Bulgarian site http://www.bgbiomass.com/bghobby/kon-tiki/index.htm has > been a great pleasure to deal with. I have done some mistakes (who does > not?) but managed to masque most of them behind a little paint and lots of > threads. (The amount of ropes and lines on the pictures of the real craft > are stunning.) For the rigging spars I have been lucky that my wife several > years ago cultivated flax in our garden. Beautiful flowers alive. Nice > bouquets also when dead and hanging in or ceiling to dry. And now a huge > stock of masts, antennas, canons, stancions and what ever thin and strong I > need for detailing my paper models. > > Sorry that there are no scale indications with the photos. The model is in > 1:100 and has a length of 15 cm (6 inches?). Also sorry if the story was a > bit long, but the model inspired me so much. > > Gunnar
Beautiful, Gunnar; simply beautiful. -- Mike Hungerford http://www.chthulhu.com/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Papermodels II" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/papermodels?hl=en.
