The Raftsmen

In 1973, a dozen misfits from seven countries embark on a seemingly impossible mission. They have been hand-picked by a hypnotically charming Spanish explorer, Vital Alsar. He doesn’t want sailors but instead picks oddballs like a French restaurant owner with a handful of seafood recipes and Chilean geologists on the run from Pinochet’s death squads. Vital somehow convinces Salvador Dali to paint a banner for the expedition and tells the crew to expect encounters with UFOs. Their aim will be to cross the world’s largest ocean on three handmade wooden rafts. To prove - where the Kon Tiki failed - that the South Pacific may have been colonised by South American mariners. For the next six months the rafts attempt the 9,000 mile crossing from Ecuador to Australia. They have with nothing but the sun and stars to guide them and rainwater to drink. Onboard are two monkeys, three kittens and a 16mm film camera. When sharks steal their fish and the last of their hooks, they must learn how to use harpoons if they want to eat. Some consuming toothpaste on the edge of starvation. As each day brings them closer to psychological breakdown, frictions threaten to undermine the camaraderie they need to survive. In the unforgiving vastness of the Pacific, they confront each other and their deepest selves. Just when they think they’re about to break through, the mother of all storms breaks them, leaving one raft and four men missing. What led this band of outsiders to attempt such a mad endeavour? And for those who live to tell the tale, how will it change them? The surviving raftsmen and loved ones finally share the incredible story of the world’s longest ever raft journey.