Gunnar an excellent history lesson, thanks for the input and a truly great model build The folks who still deny the validity of Heyerdal's Proof are full of -- well they are just WRONG. He built the craft Exactly with the exact materials and in the exact place it would have been built back then and then successfully sailed it across the sea It is Done and Proven, naysayers go home.and cry. Wildman ----- Original Message ----- From: Jim Krauzlis To: [email protected] Sent: Saturday, July 02, 2011 2:15 PM Subject: RE: [Papermodels II 45176] Kon-Tiki ready
Wonderful looking build, Gunnar, and superb history which I found very interesting…I did read the book and found Tor’s venture an amazing accomplishment. Cheers! Jim From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Gunnar Sillén Sent: Saturday, July 02, 2011 1:25 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Papermodels II 45171] Kon-Tiki ready 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 -- 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.
