Tigris

Tigris's trip (Green line).

On March 30, we watched with interest as Thor Heyerdahl's "TIGRIS" came in. She was an odd-looking boat with a very tall [prow] (../glossary/#prow){: .glossary} and a tall, stern a bit like an upturned banana. A short mast, two cabins built on deck and aft, and two external paddles as rudders. All are constructed out of reeds and balsa wood.

Dad was an avid follower of Heyerdahl, had read his previous books on the "Con Tiki" and "Ra" expeditions, and admired all Thor was trying to achieve. Thor Hyerdahl was trying to prove that it would have been possible for the indigenous races to mix via the ocean currents. So, building boats as they would have 4000 years ago of reeds set forth to prove that the currents would make it possible for the ungainly rafts to traverse the oceans.

Dad was fascinated to see history in the making and wanted to visit. After the Tigris had been at anchor for a while, Kathryn and I, sitting on the middle seat with an oar each, rowed Mum and Dad over to the Tigris. Dad is sitting in the stern, and Mum is in the bow. Some Crew members were on deck as we came alongside, so we chatted with them. Dad asked if Thor Heyerdahl could please sign his copy of Thor's books, Ra and Kon Tiki. The crew thought that'd be possible and took the books, wrapped carefully in plastic to keep them dry, into the smaller deck cabin.

Thor signed the books and returned them himself to Dad. Seeing us girls in the dinghy, he invited us all onboard. I scrambled up onto the reed deck, followed closely by Kathryn. I was the first-ever female on board. I didn't ask why, but in the past, it was deemed unlucky to have a female on a boat. Thor had already decided to burn Tigris, so the superstitions were possibly no longer relevant.

We asked if the international crew would sign Franda II's boat book for us, which they did by passing it around the deck and into the deck houses. The Tigris had an 11-man crew: Thor Heyerdahl (Norway), Norman Baker (US), Carlo Mauri (Italy), Yuri Senkevich (USSR), Germán Carrasco (Mexico), Hans Petter Bohn (Norway), Rashad Nazar Salim (Iraq), Norris Brock (US), Toru Suzuki (Japan), Detlef Soitzek (Germany), and Asbjørn Damhus (Denmark).

Kathryn and I mainly spoke to the American photographer onboard, probably because his English was the best. He told us that they often swam in the ocean and, with a grin, indicated only with sharks less than 1m in length. Was he joking? The Tigris boasted two reed cabins. One slept 8, the other 3. She was named the "Tigris" as the reeds came from the river of that name. She was launched on November 13 1977. At 59 feet long, it was the longest reed raft built in 4000 years. It had 33 metric tonnes of reeds and 4.5 tonnes of rope holding it all together. It had two "hulls", each shaped like a banana and lashed together. I broke a goose barnacle off her hull and still have it in my scrapbook.

The Tigris had just completed a four-month, 4,000-mile (6,400-km) voyage from the Tigris River in Iraq, down the Persian Gulf, across the Arabian Sea to Pakistan, and ending in Djibouti.

Heyerdahl was trying to establish that the ancient Sumerians might have used similar means to spread their culture through southwest Asia and the Arabian Peninsula. The voyage was recorded in Heyerdahl's book The Tigris Expedition (1979) and in a documentary film. Britannica

She is the fourth of Thor Heyerdahl's reed boats.

After about five months at sea and still remaining seaworthy (all but a little lower in the water), the Tigris was deliberately burnt in Djibouti on April 03 1978, as a protest against the wars raging on every side in the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa.

In his Open Letter to the UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim, Heyerdahl explained his reasons:[01] "TODAY WE BURN OUR PROUD SHIP ... TO PROTEST AGAINST INHUMAN ELEMENTS IN THE WORLD OF 1978 ... NOW WE ARE FORCED TO STOP AT THE ENTRANCE TO THE RED SEA. SURROUNDED BY MILITARY AIRPLANES AND WARSHIPS FROM THE WORLD'S MOST CIVILISED AND DEVELOPED NATIONS, WE HAVE BEEN DENIED PERMISSION BY FRIENDLY GOVERNMENTS, FOR REASONS OF SECURITY, TO LAND ANYWHERE, BUT IN THE TINY, AND STILL NEUTRAL, REPUBLIC OF DJIBOUTI. ELSEWHERE AROUND US, BROTHERS AND NEIGHBOURS ARE ENGAGED IN HOMICIDE WITH MEANS MADE AVAILABLE TO THEM BY THOSE WHO LEAD HUMANITY ON OUR JOINT ROAD INTO THE THIRD MILLENNIUM.

TO THE INNOCENT MASSES IN ALL INDUSTRIALISED COUNTRIES, WE DIRECT OUR APPEAL. WE MUST WAKE UP TO THE INSANE REALITY OF OUR TIME ... WE ARE ALL IRRESPONSIBLE, UNLESS WE DEMAND FROM THE RESPONSIBLE DECISION MAKERS THAT MODERN ARMAMENTS MUST NO LONGER BE MADE AVAILABLE TO PEOPLE WHOSE FORMER BATTLE AXES AND SWORDS OUR ANCESTORS CONDEMNED.

OUR PLANET IS BIGGER THAN THE REED BUNDLES THAT HAVE CARRIED US ACROSS THE SEAS, AND YET SMALL ENOUGH TO RUN THE SAME RISKS UNLESS THOSE OF US STILL ALIVE OPEN OUR EYES AND MINDS TO THE DESPERATE NEED OF INTELLIGENT COLLABORATION TO SAVE OURSELVES AND OUR COMMON CIVILISATION FROM WHAT WE ARE ABOUT TO CONVERT INTO A SINKING SHIP."

1.Heyerdahl, Betty Blair, Bjornar Storfjell, "25 Years Ago, Heyerdahl Burns Tigris Reed Ship to Protest War," in Azerbaijan International, Vol. 11:1 (Spring 2003), pp. 20-21.