SAFI, Morocco -- Explorer Thor Heyerdahl, seven crewmen, 24 chickens, a duck and a monkey sailed down the Moroccan coast in a papyrus boat today toward currents Heyerdahl hoped would carry them across the Atlantic.
Red and white sails billowing, the reed boat Ra II headed for the Canary Islands, the starting point for the currents Heyerdahl was counting on.
Heyerdahl hoped the papyrus boat would reach Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula in 70 days in his second attempt to prove ancient Egyptians could have reached the New World centuries before Columbus.
His first attempt at navigat ing the Atlantic in a reed boat faSed July 18 when heavy seas broke up his craft near Barbados, 600 miles short of Yucatan. The crew abandoned the boat after sharks surround ed it.
The new 36-by-15-foot Ra II was built by Indians imported from Lake Titicaca on the Peruvian-Bolivan border. It carried 148 jars of food, cooking oil and water along with the chickens, to be slaughtered for eating, and the duck and monkey mascots.
"This voyage is also aimed at proving that men of different races, religions and colors can coexist in such a reduced space and under difficult conditions," Heyerdahl said.
Besides Heyerdahl, the crew included American radio operator Norman Baker, Soviet doctor Yuri Cenkevitch, Egyptian skindiver Georges Sourial, Mexican anthropologist Santia go Genoves, Italian cook Carlo Mauri, Japanese photographer Hei Ohara and Moroccan cook Orthman Madani.
Heyerdahl has long theorized the Egyptians navigated the Atlantic and left in Central America many influences of their visits, including the pyramids of Chichen-Itza in Mexico's Yucatan, along with other architecture and art works.
Heyerdahl first achieved international fame Aug. 7, 1947 when his raft Kon-Tiki reached Roroia Reef in the Marquesas Islands in the Pacific after a 4,000-mile voyage that began April 24 at the Peruvian port of Callao.
