tangaroa

Last 24 hours Tangaroa covered a distance of more than 80 nautical miles.
The record came after several days of sailing at a higher speed than the
Kon-Tiki ever had during her 101 days at sea. With the top sail down and
one reef in the main sail, the raft makes a steady speed of more than 3
knots at winds of about 7 metres per second.


"I knew we were likely to find good winds at these latitudes", says
Bjarne, who together with Øyvin has studied the wind maps of the Pacific
very closely these last few weeks.

"We have had winds near gale and tall waves these last few days",
Øyvin tells us. "Waves of 5 metres snapping at us from behind, sending
buckets of water up on deck. The wind is blowing straight in from
behind, and we just sit and watch the raft sailing by herself.
Even if the weather is quite heavy, the sun is shining, and we're
rushing towards the west!".

The expedition has now covered 2524 nm!