Word: kon
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...Kon-Tiki was doing all right. Last week, the men on the big log raft (modeled after an ancient Peruvian balsa) sighted the first land they had seen since leaving Callao, Peru, three months and 4,100 miles ago (TIME, April 21). It was the island of Puka Puka, easternmost atoll of the Tuamotu archipelago. To the six Scandinavian scientists on the Kon-Tiki, the smudge of land was proof of their theory that ancient, pre-Inca Indians might have traveled across the Pacific from Peru to Polynesia on big, homemade rafts, carried by the south equatorial current. Sailing...
...seagoing raft Kon-Tiki, modeled after an ancient Peruvian balsa, is carrying six Scandinavian adventurer-anthropologists on a voyage of historical induction (TIME, April 21). After four days of radio silence, the raft was heard from again last week. Present position: about 1,300 miles east of the Marquesas. For a fortnight after the Kon-Tiki left Callao, Peru, the Peru current carried it northwest nearly to the equator. Then the south equatorial current and the southeast trade wind took over and pushed the raft due west across the Pacific. Drifting 40 to 50 miles...
According to reports from its feeble radio, often picked up by "hams," the Kon-Tiki's voyage had been reasonably uneventful. There had been one moderate storm, which did not endanger the buoyant raft. Whales, dolphins and sharks had played around her slowly drifting hulk, and the crew caught lots of fish...
...Kon-Tiki reaches Tahiti or the Marquesas, leader Thor Heyerdahl will claim to have proved his favorite anthropological theory: that ancient Peruvians in original-model balsas may have covered the same route many centuries...
...Kon-Tiki has a bamboo deck and a small bamboo cabin. Two masts support a primitive square sail. Modern conveniences are iron rations, U.S. Army sun-cream, anti-exposure suits. A radio will send daily weather reports to the U.S. Weather Bureau...