Kon-Tiki2 days at sea due to difficult weather conditions. By then, the rafts had sailed halfway to South America. All crew members were taken aboard a Japanese freighter, and later transported to shore by the Chilean Armada. Expedition leader Torgeir Higraff chose to terminate the expedition to avoid risking the life of crew members. The expedition built and sailed two balsawood rafts: "Rahiti Tane" and "Tupac Yupanqui". The rafts were similar to the "Kon-Tiki" raft built by Thor Heyerdahl in 1947. Like the "Kon-Tiki", "Rahiti Tane" and "Tupac Yupanqui" were built from balsawood transported from Ecuador to SIMA, the Peruvian Army's
Kon-Tiki expedition The crew once used a hand-cranked emergency transmitter to send out an "all well, all well" message "just in time to head off a massive rescue attempt". The call sign LI2B was used by Heyerdahl again in 1969–70, when he built a papyrus reed raft and sailed from Morocco to Barbados in an attempt to show a possible link between the civilization of ancient Egypt and the New World. "Kon-Tiki" left Callao, Peru, on the afternoon of April 28, 1947. To avoid coastal traffic it was initially towed out by the Fleet Tug "Guardian Rios" of the Peruvian Navy, then