Word: raft
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...papyrus craft out of the harbor at Safi, Morocco, and then cast off, leaving Thor Heyerdahl and his crew to sail their weird wicker boat 4,000 miles across the Atlantic to Central America. The Norwegian adventurer, who proved with Kon-Tiki that man could navigate a raft across the Pacific from Peru to Polynesia, hopes to show that ancient Egyptians discovered the New World long before Columbus. After four days, Heyerdahl radioed that Ra was 133 miles along the predicted track, riding a strong current and floating well-quieting a fear that the papyrus would rapidly absorb sea water...
...Life Raft and Oil Slick. He climbed into one of his squadron's 60-ton, $2.3 million airplanes, revved up the engines and started taxiing around. As crew chief, he was authorized to do so. Keeping the plane in proper operating condition was his responsibility, and crew chiefs generally have a free hand with aircraft while on the ground. But suddenly he pointed the plane's nose down the runway and took off. Though the plane normally requires a flight crew of four, Meyer seemed to know what he was doing. He had some experience piloting light planes...
...Academy seven years ago, it occurred to the school president. Colonel Charles Stribling Jr., that he seemed a bit like Huckleberry Finn. Last week Air Force Sergeant Meyer, 23, a Viet Nam veteran and crew chief of four-engine C-130 Hercules transports, took off on a kind of raft Huck Finn never dreamed of. Unfortunately, he did not manage so happy an ending...
Next day, in the English Channel only five miles from the spot where Meyer's C-130 disappeared from radar screens, a British helicopter picked up an empty life raft which Air Force officials identified as coming from the missing airplane. An oil slick and several black metal panels turned up floating nearby. There was no trace of Sergeant Meyer...
Deciding to trade one risk for another, NASA, without fanfare, changed its recovery plan. While Apollo 11 is still in the ocean, the hatch will be opened. As the astronauts emerge and climb aboard an attached raft, each will slip into a "biological isolation garment" brought along by a frogman who will be similarly outfitted. The suit is equipped with a filter that should block any organisms that the astronauts exhale. After a helicopter ride to the carrier deck, they will enter the van and follow the original quarantine plans...