Eight Men And A Duck: An Improbable Voyage by Reed Boat to Easter Island - Softcover

Thorpe, Nick

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0349114544 ISBN 13: 9780349114545

Publisher: Abacus, 2003

Synopsis

Nick Thorpe was innocently travelling around South America with his wife, Ali, when he came across an American adventurer planning to sail from Chile to Easter Island on a Bolivian boat made of reeds. Inspired by the great Thor Heyerdahl, Phil Buck had recruited seven men to join him on this experiment to discover whether it might have been possible that Polynesia was first settled from South America rather than Asia. But when one of them dropped out a place in the crew became available for Nick.

What followed was a somewhat bizarre expedition undertaken by a rather makeshift vessel, a couple of ducks (one of which could have only guessed at its fate) and a group of men, who, when all was said and done, weren't quite sure how to sail a boat...

Brilliantly told, EIGHT MEN AND A DUCK is a feel-good, hilarious tale of storms, amateur seamen and the occasional shark.

About this title

About the Author

Nick Thorpe, an experienced British journalist based in Edinburgh, spent 14 months in 1999/2000 travelling through South America He writes for a variety of national newspapers and is a contributor to the BBC World Service 'Outlook' programme. This is his first book.

From the Inside Flap

On a fateful South American bus trip, journalist Nick Thorpe overheard an improbable plan: to sail 2,500 miles to Easter Island on a boat made of reeds. Intrigued by this modern-day Kon-Tiki, he blagged his way on board only to find himself with nagging questions. Why did the crew include a tree surgeon, a jewellery salesman and a duck? What had happened to the navigator? Did anybody actually know how to sail? And, most importantly, where was the life raft?

Eight Men and a Duck charts this most eccentric of Pacific voyages as it lurched between high drama and high farce: the slow-motion launch that took five days to complete; the bungled phone call that triggered a Naval rescue alert; and the constant race against the inexorable sinking of the soggy hull.

Yet despite the menace of storms and sharks and fast-moving freighters, a singular lack of sailing qualification, and a rival explorer dogging the adventure at every turn, the crew of the Viracocha lived to tell their extraordinary tale right through to its wickedly unexpected conclusion. Nick Thorpe s account is in turn funny, touching and thrilling a story of friendship, fate, and the unfeasible lengths we will go for adventure - and a wonderful debut from an exciting new voice in travel writing.

Edition details

• Publisher: Abacus
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0349114544
• ISBN 13: 9780349114545
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320