Thor Heyerdahl – defying death to prove a hunch

The fine line between courage and madness, mythic heroism and blind unrealistic faith was never clearer than in explorer and adventurer Thor Heyerdahl’s epic 1947 Kon Tiki voyage between South America and the South Sea Islands. Obsessed with the notion that ancient Peruvian peoples had crossed 900 miles of stormy sea to people Polynesia, he set out against a mountain of objections to build an old style raft without spikes, nails or wire. Experts predicted that the balsa would break under t