'Ancient' boat expedition hits trouble

The Sydney Morning Herald ^ | September 8, 2005 - 5:25PM | SMH

[CarrotAndStick]

[hflynn]

This sounds like old news.

[frankjr]

"Don't forget to put the plug in the bottom of the boat." Sincerely, Sean Penn

[Paradox]

Maybe they shoulda aksed Thor Heyerdahl.

[hombre_sincero]

A short-trip version of the Kon-Tiki?

[Oztrich Boy]

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,
a tale of a fateful trip.
That started from this tropic port,
aboard this tiny ship.
The mate was a mighty sailin' man,
the skipper brave and sure.
Five passengers set sail that day,
for a three hour tour, a three hour tour………
The weather started getting rough,
the tiny ship was tossed.
If not for the courage of the fearless crew,
the Magan would be lost; the Magan would be lost.
The ship took ground on the shore of this uncharted desert isle,
with Vosmer, the Skipper too,
the Millionaire, and his Wife,
the Movie Star, the Professor and Mary Ann,
here on Vosmer's Isle.

[CarrotAndStick]

The Ruins at Vijayanagara and Hampi, in India

[edcoil]

They might have used a little mud or tar to seal the bottom... Over 5,000 years the mud is gone leaving only the reeds so they actually did not duplicate the vessel.

[G.Mason]

"The voyage was aimed at reliving a voyage not made for about 5,000 years, when such boats plied the waters between Mesopotamia, the Arabian Peninsula and India."

And just why is that do you suppose?

Anyone? ;)

[Professional Engineer]

Kon-Tiki

Det begynte med den dramatiske Kon-Tiki-ekspedisjonen 1947, da Heyerdahl sammen med fire andre nordmenn (Knut Haugland, Erik Hesselberg, Torstein Raaby og Herman Watzinger) og svensken Bengt Danielsson seilte på en balsaflåte fra Callao i Peru til Tuamotu-øyene i Polynesia – en strekning på ca. 8000 km, som ble tilbakelagt i løpet av 101 dager. Flåten var bygd som det Heyerdahl mente var en kopi av inka-indianernes balsaflåter, og navnet var hentet fra en mulig prekolumbisk solgud. Boken om Kon-Tiki-ekspedisjonen er oversatt til ca. 70 språk og solgt i mer enn 20 millioner eksemplarer. Filmen Kon-Tiki vant Oscar-prisen for beste dokumentarfilm 1951. Det er også blitt laget dokumentarfilmer om flere av hans senere ekspedisjoner. Etter ekspedisjonen ble flåten først sendt på turné gjennom Europa og deretter fraktet til Bygdøy i Oslo, der den fikk plass som hovedattraksjon i Kon-Tiki Museet (åpnet 1949).

[FreePaul]

They may, and I stress may, learn what "the ancients" found out about boating. If you go to sea in a boat that can leak and come apart it will. A lot of ancient would be seamen drowned in order to get a start on sea travel.

[The Red Zone]

A wooden ship would make more sense.

[The Red Zone]

Where do you get waterproof mud?

[lilylangtree]

Ah, Adventures in Paradise!

[randog]

A wooden ship would make more sense.

You might also want to actually put your boat in the water to test it before you start a 500 mile journey into open ocean.

[CarrotAndStick]

http://www.wedigboats.org/Thaikkal.htm

The Kadakkarapally Boat,(The Thaikkal Find)

An Ancient Sailing Barge in India







This is a collaborative project between INA and the State Institute of Archaeology, Art History, Conservation, and Museology (SIAACM) of Kerala, India

Director: Dr. M.V. Nair- (SIAACM)

Associate Director (hull recording): Dr. Ralph K. Pedersen- (INA)










Preliminary information:



Located in a coconut grove at Kadakkarapally, near Chertala in Kerala, India.

The hull has been carbon-dated by Birbal Sahni Institute of Paleobotany, Luchnow, India to 1010 years before present. Further testing conducted by Beta Analytics, Florida, USA has yielded at date of AD 1020 to 1270, the lower end of which reinforces the date from the lab in luchnow. There are no associated artifacts with the wreck that can aid in the determination of the ship's age.

Two maststeps, one amidships, and one double-socketed in the bow, indicate that this was a sailing barge. Its hull is divided into sections by bulkheads that either served to separate cargo or to stablize it. The bulkheads were not watertight.

Hull constructed primarily of anjili (aini) wood (Artocarpus hirsuta), a local hardwood.

The boat is flat-bottomed, hard-chined, and has little freeboard. It exhibits a combination of constructional features unique to the current corpus of nautical archaeology.

This is a project of SIAACM, at whose invitation Dr. Pedersen and INA are collaborating.

[Graymatter]

...the Professor and Mauryan

[CarrotAndStick]

The ship lying in a pool of trench water.

Each day the water must be pumped out for
recording to continue.

A view toward the bow of the vessel

The wreck as viewed from the starboard
stern quarter

[Caipirabob]

A bid by an Australian archaeologist and other sailors to recreate an ancient voyage in a traditional reed boat has struck trouble in the Arabian Sea.

Yet not so tragic as last year's "Boat of Mud" expedition, I'm thinking...