Daily Bread for 4.28.14

Good morning.

We’ve a rainy day ahead, with a high of forty-seven.

On this day in 1947, Thor Heyerdahl begins an ocean voyage in the Kon-Tiki expedition:

Heyerdahl believed that people from South America could have settled Polynesia in pre-Columbian times. Although most anthropologists as of 2010 had come to the conclusion they did not,[1][2][3] in 2011, new genetic evidence was uncovered by Erik Thorsby that Easter Island inhabitants in fact do have some South American DNA,[4] lending credence to at least some of Heyerdahl’s theses. His aim in mounting the Kon-Tiki expedition was to show, by using only the materials and technologies available to those people at the time, that there were no technical reasons to prevent them from having done so. Although the expedition carried some modern equipment, such as a radio, watches, charts, sextant, and metal knives, Heyerdahl argued they were incidental to the purpose of proving that the raft itself could make the journey.

The Kon-Tiki expedition was funded by private loans, along with donations of equipment from the United States Army. Heyerdahl and a small team went to Peru, where, with the help of dockyard facilities provided by the Peruvian authorities, they constructed the raft out of balsa logs and other native materials in an indigenous style as recorded in illustrations by Spanish conquistadores. The trip began on April 28, 1947. Heyerdahl and five companions sailed the raft for 101 days over 6900 km (4,300 miles) across the Pacific Ocean before smashing into a reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands on August 7, 1947. The crew made successful landfall and all returned safely.

Here’s a trailer for the very fine 2011 film, Kon-Tiki:

Puzzability begins a new series today, called Lone Rangers:

This Week’s Game — April 28-May 2

Lone Rangers

Welcome to the Daily Hitching Post. For each day this week, we started with the name of a well-known person from the days of the Old West and removed all the letters that appear more than once, leaving just the singly occurring letters. Each day’s clue gives the unique letters in order (with any spaces removed), along with the lengths of the name components in parentheses.

Example:

CHIAY (3,8)

Answer:

Doc Holliday

What to Submit:

Submit the full name (as “Doc Holliday” in the example) for your answer.

Monday, April 28

IOKLY (5,6)