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

by Nick Thorpe, Richard Steinbock (Illustrator)

Even with the wind on our side and all eight of us pulling, we had never yet managed to change the complex sails....Now we had to pull against the full force of the wind, in a storm, in the middle of the night....

So begins Nick Thorpe's unlikely journey to sail 2,500 miles from northern Chile to Easter Island on the Viracocha -- a boat made of reeds. Captain Phil Buck's desire to test the waters in this pre-Incan boat was 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 a time in the process. With a crew that includes a tree surgeon, a jewelry salesman, and two ducks, Thorpe embarks on an unnerving Pacific voyage that is by turns fierce and from the bungled phone call that triggered a naval rescue alert to the constant race against the inexorable sinking of the soggy hull. A story of high tides and even higher stakes, 8 Men and a Duck is a tale of friendship, fate, and the unlikely distances people will travel for true adventure.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, Memoir, Nautical

256 pages, Paperback

First published May 2, 2002

About the author

Nick Thorpe is an award-winning writer and journalist. A contributor to the Sunday Times, Daily Telegraph, Guardian, Independent, Scotsman and BBC Radio 4 among others, he has covered stories ranging from Russian presidential elections to the coca wars of Bolivia, for which he was shortlisted for the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism.

His latest book, Urban Worrier: Adventures in the Lost Art of Letting Go (Little Brown, Jun 2011) is the story of his quest to find balance and fulfilment by sampling everything from naturism to monasticism, Buddhism to ballooning. "Pitch-perfect," wrote the Scotsman's reviewer. "Thorpe's epiphany is profound and affecting, and it is the counterpoint of poignancy and comedy that makes this very personal search for peace so utterly life-affirming."

Adrift in Caledonia: Boat-hitching for the Unenlightened (Abacus 2006), charts his 2500-mile journey around Scotland on other people's boats. It was serialised on BBC Radio 4′s Book of the Week programme in March 2006. Eight Men and a Duck, his critically-acclaimed first book, recounts his voyage to Easter Island by reed boat and was published by Abacus in 2003.

Nick grew up near London but moved to Scotland nearly 20 years ago. He lives in Edinburgh with his wife and young son. www.nickthorpe.co.uk

Reviews

[Marcie]

I wish that I liked this one as much as some of the best of the sailing genre. Thorpe is a journalist and kept the story moving along. He just doesn't have much sailing background and it was a pretty uneventful trip, so he focused most of his story on the inexperienced crew. Unfortunitely, his constant pettiness, fear and cluelessness and the ineptness of the crew just wore me out by the end.

This was the story of "captain" Phil Buck's plan to move a commissioned reed boat from Lake Titicaca, finish it in coastal Chile, and then sail it to Easter Island. Thorpe is a journalist looking for a story when he meets one of the crew on a bus. The eight men who finally end up sailing were just plain lucky that no harm came to them. No one on board had skill with electronics and little skill with navigation or medicine or well, sailing. Everything was just done- no planning or expertise required.

The book reminded me, of course, of Thor Heyerdahl's Kon-Tiki (which was the inspiration for the trip) and also of The Incredible Journey by Tristen Jones and actually a lot of The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst because of the lack of preparedness.

It was the writing that led me to give this 3 stars. The self-congratulatory crew was annoying, but the boatbuilding segment and the boat's arrival in Rapa Nui kept me reading.

[Becca]

8 Men and a Duck is an amusing recounting of the voyage of the Viracocha and her rather ill-suited crew from Chile to Easter Island to prove that ancient South Americans could have made the journey. At least that's what they were alleging they were attempting to prove. Given their apparent lack of interest in the specifics of the theory and their shock that the Rapa Nui were not elated with their findings, it's obvious that the only real motivation here was to sail in a reed boat like Captain (and I use the term loosely here)Phil Buck's hero, Thor Heyerdahl, did in Kon Tiki.
Don't get me wrong, the book is very entertaining. I did have a few laugh out loud moments. But, what struck me from the beginning was the laissez faire attitude adopted by the entire crew. None of them were what you could call experienced sailors and most of them were reckless and immature.
The fact that no one noticed they'd installed the sails upside down was a prime moment for a face-palm, and they didn't even bother to figure out how to log in to the navigation equipment, test their battery system or attempt a man-overboard rescue before they were well underway. They didn't seem to take anything very seriously.
There was also a surprising amount of sulking and temper tantrums. I suppose if you put 8 people in such close proximity with no means of escaping each other pettiness is inevitable, but it got painful to read. I was honestly shocked that this literal ship of fools managed to pull it off by sheer dumb luck.
This was a fun travel read, and I recommend it to anyone who's ever dreamed of going on an adventure. But be warned, I think a ship run by the cast of Monty Python would have had more discipline and order.

[Anna Engel]

I was fascinated by the Kon-Tiki voyage. Although they didn't prove that Polynesian peoples came from South America, they proved it was possible. Very cool stuff.

"8 Men" is kinda boring. Even the launch was a multi-step dud. I was disappointed at Thorpe's constant harping on the expedition's negative aspects: one crew member or another was grouchy and/or petulant, forces were at work to destroy the morale of the crew members, equipment didn't work as intended, etc. etc. The would-be sailors seemed to have oodles of waiting-around time and didn't seem to use it to properly prepare. Even Phil, who ostensibly adventures into places lacking comforts and amenities, seemed to fail at this. They should have been testing equipment, packing and repacking and repacking equipment, experimenting with meal preparations. And so on.

Nick Thorpe is no Bill Bryson and definitely not Thor Heyerdahl. Bryson takes on adventure and finds the absurdity in it. What little humor there was in "8 Men" (one of which went back to nature and the other basically stopped being mentioned) was forced and stilted. Thorpe lacked Heyerdahl's sense of history and adventure.

[Sharon]

I love an adventure at sea, and this story gave a good account of all the highs and lows of the journey

[Harris Tweed]

I have only the barest interest in Kon-Tiki or the peopling of Polynesia - my apologies, one can't be interested in everything, I don't think - but I had a great time with this little book.

[Sadowski]

I read this book assuming that it would be some a bland read yet from almost the first chapter I was sucked into the book. The book follows the author across the South Pacific where he and the rest of the crew encounters sharks, loneliness and a variation of cabin fever which is unnerving on a normal boat yet these men dealt with it while on a large raft made of reeds. Nick Thorpe, the narrator, gives perspective on the necessities that make up an odd voyage such as that with humor and fact that will keep the reader focused until the end of the book. He and seven others in Peru come together in an effort to prove that with ancient boat building technologies that it was possible to travel from South America to Easter Island. By proving this it would provide a feasible way that ancient Easter islanders made it to the island contrary to the original theory that they can from Polynesia. I really enjoyed the book because I discovered the famed adventurer Thor Heyerdahl and his role in rediscovering some of the most crucial links between ancient civilizations through implementing ancient boat building techniques and proving that it was possible to connect separate civilizations. I learned about an almost dead craft of boat building and the largely unknown endeavour of eight people sailing across the Pacific on a small reed craft. Overall I would thoroughly recommend this book.

[Robert]

You can also find my review of Eight Men and a Duck on my book blog

A journalist has a chance encounter with a confident, gung-ho adventurous American, and decides to join the American's quest to cross from Chile to Easter Island in a reed boat, inspired by Thor Heyerdahl's Kon-Tiki adventure (which never actually landed on Easter Island).

The book reads like someone telling a yarn to his mates. It's chummy, everyone's improvising, a bit inept, and hugely reliant on luck. The quest is about as wise, responsible and well-prepared as the adventures in the Hangover movie series, but there's less humour.

It's not really a scientific thing: it's people having an adventure for adventure's sake.

Once the only vaguely skilled person left the team (frustrated with his companions' habit of winging it and lack of preparation / forethought, and the resulting delays), the narrative lost a lot of interest for me. Basically, I didn't really like any of these guys all that much, as I could not respect them.

It's not a bad book, but it doesn't really have anything much to say. A bunch of bumbling young men seek adventure and succeed mostly through luck. The end.

[Peggy]

The author (a veteran traveller) kind of happens upon a group of men who are building a reed boat with the intention of sailing it from South America to Easter Island, to show that it could be done. He somehow ends up on the boat as part of an extremely lackadaisical crew, who do not seem to share his sense of panic over things like no radio. It was a very quick and enjoyable read.

[Daren]

Easy reading book, amusing and interesting voyage. An amazingly disorganised and seemingly poorly planned adventure, making it all the more surprising that they succeeded with relative ease!
Less serious, but in the same vein as Tim Severin's adventures.

[Katherine]

I liked the honesty in their approach.

[Stephanie]

I gave up. I got bored before they even got the boat launched. Sorry, Nick Thorpe.