Brave (of a kind) it might be, but there strikes me as something ersatz about the planned recreation of Thor Heyerdahl's 1947 Kon-Tiki voyage by a team including his grandson. The original voyage was intended to prove Heyerdahl's theory - which is no longer taken very seriously - that Polynesia could have been settled by trans-Pacific migrants from Peru; as such, his raft was only equipped with technologies appropriate to the period. The new expedition boasts satellite navigation, solar panels, and Internet connectivity; it will, in other words, prove absolutely nothing, except perhaps that it's possible to check your Netflix account from a plank of wood in the middle of the ocean. The self-conscious artificiality of the stunt reminds me of the ill-fated Millennium Stone project, although hopefully the ending in this case won't be nearly so - aquatic.
Posted by Alan Allport at September 7, 2004 05:01 AM