Expedition abandoned at sea

EASTER ISLAND – Fourteen adventurers have been rescued off the coast of Chile after weather forced them to abandon the recreation of a historic maritime journey.

The Kon-Tiki2 expedition had been sailing two balsa rafts from Peru to Easter Island and back, documenting climate change, marine life and the impact of pollution.

The crew had spent 114 days on the Pacific Ocean, reaching Easter Island and covering 8,334 km before they requested a rescue Wednesday around 1800km from Chile “due to atypical winds.”

“This is an El Niño year and the weather patterns we have encountered have been atypical. We realize that reaching South America will take too long and we prefer to evacuate to ensure safety for all,” expedition leader Torgeir Higraff said in a statement.

The Chilean navy said it received the rescue request Wednesday after one of the rafts “lost navigational capability.” It instructed a merchant vessel in the area to go to the expedition’s aid.

A navy boat and plane were also dispatched to establish the exact location of the two balsawood rafts.

“We maintained permanent contact with them, since they departed from Easter Island, foreseeing that they could be experiencing some issues,” said Mario Montejo, director of security and maritime operations.

“They are in good health, a little tired. The rafts were beginning to deteriorate and that made the stay of the people on board risky,” he said.

Social media photos show the expedition crew dismantling what had been their home for more than four months and retrieving monitoring equipment prior to abandoning the rafts.

In a blog post Monday, crew member Lisa Ie Heuheu, from New Zealand, described the adverse conditions that had hit the rafts, saying they had seen the wildest weather of their journey over the two days prior.

“The waves were throwing us around like a spin cycle on a washing machine and the 5-6 meter holes we were falling into felt as though you were being swallowed whole by the ocean itself,” she wrote.

“With the wind in an unfavourable direction, our sail has been down now for almost 36 hours, the easterly position we had made before the storm is slowly coming upon us as we are pushed west by winds and currents.”

The weather, she said, was erasing their gains.

“It is hard to swallow this backwards and forwards of sailing out here. Every day that you gain seems to be taken away in a single stormy event,” she said.

The Chilean navy said the Kon-Tiki2 left Peru in November , arriving in Easter Island on December 15.

Adverse weather conditions diverted the rafts after they departed Easter Island on January 6 sending them farther south than intended.

The Kon-Tiki2 expedition was inspired by Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl’s 1947 trip from Peru to Tahiti on a balsa wood log raft, named Kon-Tiki. Heyerdahl was trying to prove that people from South America could have colonized Polynesia.

“Kon-Tiki2 got its name because we seek to double-down on Thor Heyerdahl’s famous voyage by sailing two rafts from South America to Polynesia and then back,” the expedition’s website says. - CNN