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Eight Men and a Duck: An Improbable Voyage by Reed Boat to Easter Island

Nick Thorpe

Eight Men and a Duck: An Improbable Voyage by Reed Boat to Easter Island

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ISBN:
9780349114545
ISBN-10:
0-349-11454-4

Abacus

An Abacus title

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.

Reviews

  • 'Thorpe is an accomplished storyteller. He chronicles the voyage of the Viracocha with an easy, unforced humour… Thoroughly entertaining' DAILY TELEGRAPH
  • 'An often hilarious- and hair-raising- account of a voyage by reed boat to Easter Island. Comparions with Thor Heyerdahl and Tim Severin are most definitely invidious.' GLASGOW HERALD
  • 'An exciting, involving read.' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY

Paperback: £8.99

Published 01/05/2003

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