8 Men and a Duck
An Improbable Voyage by Reed Boat to Easter Island
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4.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
8 Men and a Duck charts the hilarious and unnerving Pacific voyage as it rolls between waves of high drama and high farce: from the five-day launch off a Chilean beach, to the bungled phone call that triggered a naval rescue alert, to the sad fate of Pedro the duck, to the constant race against the inexorable sinking of the soggy hull.
On a fateful South American bus trip, journalist Nick Thorpe overheard some fellow passengers discussing an improbable plan to sail 2,500 miles from northern Chile to Easter Island on the Viracocha—a boat made of reeds. The crew's aim in reviving this pre-Incan boat-building technology was twofold: to reopen the controversial migration theories of Thor Heyerdahl, who sailed his boat the Kon-Tiki from Peru to Polynesia in 1947, and to have one heck of an adventure in the process. Thorpe talked his way on board Captain Phil Buck's Viracocha only to find himself plagued by uncertainty. Why did the crew include a tree surgeon, a jewelry salesman, and two ducks? What happened to the navigator? Did anybody actually know how to sail? And, most important, where was the life raft?
Despite the best efforts of storms and sharks and fast-moving freighters, an alarming lack of sailing qualifications, and a rival explorer dogging the adventure at every turn, the crew members of the Viracocha lived to tell their extraordinary tale right through to its wickedly unexpected conclusion. Nick Thorpe's account is by turns funny, touching, and thrilling—a story of friendship, fate, and the unlikely distances people will go for real adventure.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
When British travel writer and all-around thrill seeker Thorpe was traveling the wilds of Bolivia by bus, he passed the time by eavesdropping on a Frenchman talking to an Australian about a boat made of reeds. The conversation seemed more interesting than your average cross-cultural traveler exchange, so Thorpe listened intently as the Frenchman talked about legendary voyager Thor Heyerdahl and about continuing his legacy, about building this reed boat in Huatajata and sailing to Easter Island in it just eight men and a duck. Thorpe's enthusiasm for this insanity was such that he had to get involved. And not just as a documentarian: an original crew member dropped out, Thorpe dropped in and soon the journalist found himself making sails. The resulting narrative is witty, sad and as brave and daft as those who sail. Thorpe's British self-deprecation and eye for detail legitimize his passing comments on his fellow crew members, providing comic relief in an often claustrophobic text. A master of tension, Thorpe mingles storms, bruised egos, paranoia, food shortages, botched launchings, lamented loved ones and utterly inept seamanship into a tale of triumph against the odds. In Thorpe's hands, a travelogue becomes a comedy of errors, a farce, a Latinate epic and a picaresque tale. It's a warm, wonderful book, a story of enthusiasm superseding expertise in which Fate smiles favorably.
