"Kon-tiki": the madness of long-distance navigation. Balsa raft "Kon-Tiki" Raft kontiki drawings and dimensions

balsa raft Kon-Tiki was built as a copy of an ancient South American Indian raft. The raft consisted of nine balsa logs brought from Ecuador and was operated by a crew of six with Thor Heyerdahl. Kon-Tiki sailed from Peru on April 28, 1947 and reached Polynesia 101 days later, covering just under 7,000 km. The possibility of migration of the ancestors of the Polynesians from South America has been proven.

CONTENTS OF THE SHIP MODEL KIT

The Italian company Mantua uses the same lightweight balsa in its ship model as on a real raft. Neat round balsa blanks with a diameter of about 25 mm are specially roughened, stained with a dark stain (included in the kit), glued together and additionally tied with a thick thread. The only hut-hut is made according to the original technology with imitation of wickerwork, and on top it has a canopy of wide palm leaves.

A large scale allows you to make a raft not only with glue, but also to connect logs, making transverse beams, low bulwarks, a low bow side, fastening a primitive mast and making rigging. The image of the ancient God on the sail is made using the attached stencil. The ship model is equipped with both oars and a rope ladder to the mast.

The instruction has about 150 color photographs of the phased assembly of the model and practically does not have explanatory text, because. everything is very clear from the photographs. scale 1:18 length 590 mm

The history of shipbuilding and navigation goes back to the distant prehistoric past. They probably originated in primitive society. For crossing rivers and lakes, individual tree trunks were first used, and then rafts of them, connected by flexible roots, lianas. With the help of poles, and then primitive sails made of animal skins, movement on the water was carried out.

In 1947, extraordinary news spread around the world - the Norwegian ethnographer Thor Heyerdahl with five comrades, on a raft, which was used thousands of years ago by the ancient Incas - the inhabitants of South America, sailed from the coast of Peru to the islands of Polynesia. On a primitive raft, connected from 9 large balsa trees, with a quadrangular sail, the brave explorers sailed almost 8,000 km across the ocean in 100 days, using constant currents and fair winds.

The ancient Inca rafts were built from balsa trees growing in the tropical forests of Ecuador. When the Spaniards appeared in those parts in the 16th century, they saw rafts on which the locals floated not only along the rivers, but also in the sea; raft in Spanish - balsa, this word stuck to the trees from which the rafts were tied.

When dry, balsa wood is about 2 times lighter than cork. It is well processed, does not split. Balsa trees reach 20-25 m in height and 75-90 cm in diameter. The trees have a smooth trunk, crown and large green leaves.

The raft, built by Heyerdahl from the drawings of the ancient Incas, was made exactly as they were made 1500 years ago. There were 9 logs, the longest of them - 14 meters - was laid in the middle, on both sides of it the remaining 8 logs were laid symmetrically. The outer logs, 10 m long, connected together at the bow, formed a triangle, which facilitated the movement of the raft. In the stern, three medium logs protruded slightly, in this place a deck was attached with sockets for the oarlocks of the stern oar, which replaced the steering wheel. All logs were connected with a vegetable cable with a diameter of 30 mm. On top of the logs and across them, thin balsa poles-ronzhins were reinforced at intervals of about a meter. Above was a deck of split bamboo trunks, attached at the ends to the ronjins. Mats woven from young bamboo shoots were fixed on the deck. In several places, where there were gaps between the logs, five pine boards 25 mm thick and 60 cm wide, immersed in water one and a half meters, were reinforced. The boards were fixed with wedges and ropes and served as the keels of the raft. This kind of keels existed on all ancient Inca rafts and were intended to ensure that the raft was not very blown away by the wind and current.

In the middle of the raft, a little closer to the stern, a cabin of bamboo poles was installed; its walls were woven from bamboo shoots, and the roof was made of bamboo planks and glossy banana leaves stacked one on top of the other like tiles.

In front of the cabin was a mast made of mangrove wood, hard as iron; there was a small mast in the stern. The masts stood obliquely in relation to one another, their tops were tied crosswise. A large square sail was mounted on a yard made from two bamboo stems tied together for strength.

An observation platform was set up on the top of the mast. Balsa poles were laid along each side to provide support for the legs. An image of the legendary Kon-Tiki, the leader of the Polynesians, was painted on the sail.

According to T. Heyerdahl, an armada of such rafts crossed the Pacific Ocean in ancient times and thousands of people landed on the islands of Polynesia.

All the necessary drawings of the Peruvian balsa raft model are shown in fig. 109 (about one-tenth the actual size of a real Kon-Tiki raft). The dimensions of all parts of the raft model are kept on the same scale; the dimensions of the parts can be taken from the drawing without any changes.

Building materials: wood, bamboo, paper, thread, a piece of silk for a sail, straw (if the mat is made like a real one). Paint logs, beams and other parts with stain. The roof is made of drawing paper, it can be painted with gouache or watercolor paint. The image of Kon-Tiki must be transferred to tracing paper, and then from tracing paper to sail.

The built model of the Peruvian raft is classified as a desktop miniature and is designated: XIII class "A".

Ship Model Kit Contents

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Project description

1. Not a very long intro

No real researcher insists on definitive and irrevocable conclusions from his research. Most likely, the famous Norwegian traveler Thor Heyerdahl could be attributed to those.

His research activity after serving in the Norwegian special forces was aimed at proving the hypothesis of the possibility of resettlement of South American Indians on primitive swimming facilities on the islands of Polynesia. At the same time, as stated, the ancient navigators covered a distance of more than five thousand kilometers across the ocean ... Judging by the words of Heyerdahl, the hypothesis arose in the background in the minds of scientists for a long time, but the decisive factor preventing its introduction into scientific circulation was the absence of proper swimming facilities.

Thor Heyerdahl drew attention to the growth of a light balsa tree in South American forests. This fact served as the basis for his formulation of a hypothesis about the resettlement of Indians to Polynesia on balsa rafts after they had overcome a distance of more than five thousand kilometers across the Pacific Ocean. At the same time, the decisive sociological reason for the resettlement should have been a sudden onset of a natural disaster or a sudden attack by strong and powerful enemies.

In 1947, his famous voyage took place on the giant Kon-Tiki raft, made of balsa wood. The members of the international expedition reached the desired islands of Polynesia in the Pacific Ocean, which, from the point of view of the organizer Thor Heyerdahl, turned out to be experimental proof of the hypothesis of the successful migration of South American peoples to the islands of Polynesia. The whole process of both making a raft and sailing on it is described in the book of his authorship "Journey to the Kon-Tiki". This book and many other of his authorships have been translated into many languages of the world, including Russian.

As described in the book mentioned, the raft itself was made from balsa wood native to the forests of Ecuador. The trunks of the trees were cut down with the help of modern iron tools (though, as follows from his book, with great difficulty). Further, individual materials were delivered to the coast, and there a raft was assembled from them.

Let's look at this raft in a little more detail and think about what technologies its builders should have had to build it (the picture itself is taken from the site http://hobbyarea.ru/article_info.php?tPath=5&articles_id=33%29)

The figure shows that during the construction of the raft were used:
- balsa tree
- mangrove
- pine
- bamboo
- canvas
Thus, the raft builders had to have the following technologies:

Ability to process balsa wood

Ability to process mangrove

Ability to handle pine

Ability to process bamboo

The ability to grow flax or hemp and the ability to make linen from them, as well as the ability to make sails from linen.

At the same time, a requirement automatically arose for the area where this raft was to be made: the Indians had to know about the places of growth of each of the listed representatives flora. These places of growth should be located close to each other, otherwise the Indians could simply go overland to another area, and they simply would not need to sail across the ocean.

Further. For the manufacture of ships, it is necessary to process wood materials, and for this you need tools: axes, saws, drills. Such tools could be stone or metal. Both those and others, it was necessary to be able to produce and use.

As for stone tools, they could be made from a strictly limited set of stones. In general, for archaeologists and reenactors of human history, the process of making tools from improvised materials, stone or bone, has always been a difficult task. The original natural material for such tools itself had to be easily found and easily processed.

Something similar can be said about metal tools: for their manufacture it is necessary that there is ore, and in shallow places of occurrence, and also fusible. Otherwise, metal tools cannot be made.

In a word, the organizers of this project believe that the scientific heritage presented in Thor Heyerdahl's books should be rethought. Their opinion: the presented scientific logic of Thor Heyerdahl has shortcomings from the following points of view:

In terms of the availability of natural means for making tools, in particular in terms of mineralogy and metallurgy

From the point of view of sociology - an attempt to test the possibility for a highly developed tribe, simply in case of danger, to leave the enemies in the mountains, without undertaking a voyage through the waters of the Pacific Ocean

2. Description of the proposed project

With the exclusion of any metallurgy from the process of making a balsa raft, it would be logical to assume its manufacture using tools made from more primitive metals (lead, bronze) or simply using stone or bone tools.

Based on this, an expedition that would combine two processes would bring the greatest scientific value:

The process of making tools for making balsa rafts

The very process of making balsa rafts using these tools

The last process of making the balsa rafts themselves, in turn, would be broken down into the following steps:

The process of felling balsa wood in a tropical forest*

The process of its transportation to the coast or the shore of a reservoir, along which it could be delivered to the ocean

The process of processing wood to a state of readiness for knitting it into an already finished raft

The process of making binding materials (ropes), again, from available raw materials (the traditional version is silent about what the sails were made of in the absence of flax or hemp, traditional materials)

The final process of making a raft from ready-made materials

* - (as a note): Heyerdahl himself dismissed the possibility of making swimming aids from balsa wood felled during a windbreak, as its wood would quickly swell, gain weight, lose lightness and become unsuitable for use as material for a raft

The process of making tools should stem from local improvised raw materials strictly according to the recommendations of connoisseurs of local minerals. Precisely the presence comfortable materials for the manufacture of tools should be the determining factor for the first stage of the expedition.

The instruments themselves must be made in front of the vast majority (if not all) of the members of the expedition.

The process of felling balsa wood in the rainforest (cutting down or chopping) must proceed strictly using only those tools that were made by the participants themselves in the first stage. In other words: if you managed to make a bronze ax - with the help of a bronze ax, if you managed to make only lead - with the help of a lead ax, if you managed to make a bone or stone saw or an ax - with this saw or this ax. In the same way, the process of its processing should proceed.

The process of transporting it to the coast or the shore of a reservoir, along which the material could be delivered to the ocean, must also proceed strictly using the technologies available to man at the most primitive stage of human development. It can stem from the use of pack animals that live in this region.

The process of making binders should look exactly the same - strictly from materials available in the area. T as well as the process of making a sail.

At the last stage, the participants of the expedition will complete the manufacture of the raft by assembling it from previously prepared materials.

3. Understanding the results

If at any of the stages any of the technological operations would be impossible, this would serve as a signal to abandon the further stages of the expedition and proclaim the need for scientific correction of the results of Thor Heyerdahl and notify all those interested

Thor Heyerdahl

When I read Eric's book as a member of the expedition, I relived the expedition again. The book presents events in a lively, humorous way that is sure to attract both children and adults. Eric's drawings say more than words.

Knut Haugland, Kon-Tiki radio operator

Among the participants of the Kon-Tiki expedition was Thor Heyerdahl's childhood playmate, Eric Hesselberg. After graduating from a nautical school, he sailed on merchant ships and made several trips around the world. Cheerful and talented, he loved to play the guitar and was good at drawing. When the wandering life bored him, he settled in the small Norwegian town of Borre and took up painting. As soon as Heyerdahl wrote to an old friend about the planned journey, he, without a moment's hesitation, left his wife and little daughter to embark on a long and dangerous voyage.

On the Kon-Tiki, Hesselberg, the only real sailor on the team, acted as navigator: he made astronomical observations, determined the location of the raft and marked its course on the map. In his free time from shifts and navigator's worries, he painted, capturing on paper everything that he saw interesting. Subsequently, he added text to the drawings - a semi-humorous description of the journey from Borre to Lima and the main events during the rafting trip. This is how the book “Kon-Tiki and I” appeared.

Below are the drawings and captions to them made by hand by the author. (The drawings and brief explanations for them were taken by us from his book)

1500 years ago in Peru there were many who knew Kon-Tiki. The sun was the greatest god in those days, and Kon-Tiki stood between the sun and the people. Native American legends tell that he was white-skinned and had a beard. His descendants built big cities in the wild Andes. Today it is ruins. Legends say that the city on Lake Titicaca, where Kon-Tiki lived, was attacked by the Indians, but Kon-Tiki managed to escape to the coast with a few friends. Here they boarded rafts of wood BALSA and disappeared into pacific ocean– going home to the Sun, so says the legend.

Kon-Tiki looked like this, this or that, it's hard to say now, but all these bearded faces made of stone and clay were found in America.

1500 years passed before anyone began to think about it. When Thor Heyerdahl began to think about Kon-Tiki, it was not strange, because he was studying the problem of the origin of the Polynesians - a problem that turned many ethnological heads gray.

The Kon-Tiki team was assembled. Their European names (from left to right) are Knut Haugland, Hermann Watzinger, Thor Heyerdahl, Erik Hesselberg (the author of the drawings and text described himself as having a height of 6 feet and 4 inches, so he is always easy to recognize), Bengt Danielsson, Thorstein Robyu. Danielsson is Swedish, the rest of the team is Norwegian.

Gerd Vold is the permanent secretary of the expedition. The newspapers called her the "Godmother of the Raft".

The seventh crew member, the only woman on board, the parrot Lorita, tragically died in the waves after two-thirds of the way.

The eighth member is the Yuhannes crab.

There were still uncounted members of the crew, such as cockroaches, ants, and a thousand clams, held on to the underside of the logs with suction cups.

Tour and German got 9 balsa logs in the jungles of Ecuador. Balsa is a light tree, but not easy to cut. However, they themselves cut down the trees, tied them together with vines, and set off along a small river that ran through the jungle.

Tour and Herman sat on top of the cargo and floated downriver to the port of Guayaquil. The logs then arrived by cargo ship at the port of Callao near Lima.

We used old Spanish drawings as instructions for building a large raft. Our raft was perhaps a more accurate copy of them.

The Kon-Tiki radio station was called Lima India 2 Bravo. This device was not first-class, it often shocked, as the batteries constantly got wet and had to be replaced. The rest of the team tried not to touch Thorstein and Knut without rubber gloves when they worked on the key.

The noblest of the fish were the dolphins that swam around the raft. Coryphena look great and taste great. This is the most fast fish in the sea, it feeds on flying fish, which is why it moves so fast. Dolphin flies like a projectile from the top to the top of the wave and catches the flying fish when it re-enters the water.

Coryphenes could change color from dark blue and purple to red, yellow and silvery white. They could be up to 5 feet long and liked to swim around the raft and rub against the logs. There were so many dolphins around the raft all the time that we could tie a hook to a stick, dip the stick into a school of fish and catch the biggest and best. Flying fish flew through the air in a crowd and plopped against the wall of the cabin. The cook's first job in the morning was to collect all the flying fish that had landed on the raft during the night. One morning, Herman found 23. One flying fish almost hit the pan.

So sailed "Kon-Tiki" under sail in calm weather. The inside of the hut on the raft for a hundred days of travel looked something like this:

Harmless to people (because it feeds on plankton), but dangerous, because of its mass, for the raft, the whale shark led the team into confusion. Fortunately, the meeting ended happily.

On August 7, on the 101st day of departure from Peru, the voyage was completed. In the morning there was a cry “Ahead of the earth!” We put everything in the center of the raft, lowered the sail, packed what we considered important in waterproof bags. We continued to do this until the noise of breakers filled the air. Then there was still time to put on life jackets and shoes.

By sheer luck, we were able to stay on the logs long enough to save our strength, in the hope that the Kon-Tiki would be thrown onto the reef. We were ready. It would be terrible if we died then and there. A wave came and seemed to lower us right into the "witch's cauldron". The raft crackled, but withstood the blow. Then we were taken up again. As a result, the mast broke, the cabin collapsed, everything broke, twisted and broke. But we were all alive, wedged under bamboo mats or clinging to tight ropes.

We then jumped down onto the red corals one by one and ran across the reef out of danger. And behind us the raft moved like a wild horse with Tur and Thorstein on its back. I can say that in the end we were satisfied with our raft, it brought us to Polynesia alive. So Kon-Tiki, the son of the Sun, could come to Polynesia in the same way.

The Kon-Tiki lay on the edge of the reef. Waves crushed the deck and superstructure, but nine logs survived and saved our lives. The sea washed away part of the cargo, but what we put into the cabin was completely intact. We took everything of value from the raft.

I took another look at the wrecked raft and noticed a tiny palm tree in a basket. It rose half a meter from a hole in a coconut, two roots hanging down. Holding the walnut in my hand, I wade to the islet.

The next day, on the cape, against which our Kon-Tiki was thrown onto the reef, we dug a hole at the edge of the grove, lined it with leaves and planted a germinated walnut from Peru.

Thor Heyerdahl“It so happened that we met in Lima to build a balsa wood raft according to old Spanish plans and then crossed the sea like Kon-Tiki. The Humboldt Current, the South Equatorial Current, and the southeasterly winds helped us cross the ocean, just as they helped the Kon-Tiki.

Eric Hesselberg "Kon-Tiki and Me"