Kon-Tiki expedition was able to cross the Pacific Ocean on the balsa raft from Peru to Polynesia. A French seafarer, Éric de Bisschop, committed himself in a project he had had for some years: he built a Polynesian raft in order to cross the eastern Pacific Ocean from Tahiti to Chile (contrary to Thor Heyerdahl's crossing); the "Tahiti-Nui" left Papeete with a crew of five on November 8, 1956. When near the Juan Fernández Islands (Chile) in May 1957, the raft was in a very poor state and they asked for a towing, but it was damaged during the operation and had
Kon-Tiki expedition Raft Across the South Seas", later reprinted as "Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific in a Raft". It appeared with great success in English in 1950, also in many other languages. A documentary motion picture about the expedition, also called "Kon-Tiki", was produced from a write-up and expansion of the crew's filmstrip notes and won an Academy Award in 1951. It was directed by Thor Heyerdahl and edited by Olle Nordemar. The voyage was also chronicled in the documentary TV-series "The Kon-Tiki Man: The Life and Adventures of Thor Heyerdahl", directed by Bengt Jonson. The original "Kon-Tiki" raft is now on display