Students set to re-create raft voyage
Amid cheers, clapping, and a shout of "bon voyage," a modest red raft set sail on its maiden voyage up the Charles River last week to re-create history.
Built by MIT undergraduates, the 12-foot-by-12-foot raft is a model of ancient Ecuadorian sailing vessels. According to MIT professor Dorothy Hosler, archeological findings suggest that Ecuadorian sailors introduced metalworking to western Mexico more than a thousand years ago. At that time, people in ancient Mexico began to make metal objects, including bells, needles, and tweezers. But no one really knows how the mariners navigated rafts 3,000 miles up the coast.
To find out, students Ryan Bavetta, Daniel Cohen, Leslie Dewan, and Danny Shen built their own raft last month. They call it Pakpaka, which means "little red owl" in Quechua, an indigenous Ecuadorian language.
The students spent $597.17 of a $600 budget provided by MIT, using plywood and Styrofoam to mimic the density and elasticity of balsa used in ancient rafts. "One of our main problems was figuring out a substitute for balsa wood, which was way too expensive to import from Ecuador," said Dewan, 19, a junior nuclear engineering major.
The students and Hosler say they hope to build a larger raft from balsa wood in Ecuador and sail it to Mexico. On Aug. 2, however, the sailors were focused on learning to steer Pakpaka.
Under a sweltering sun, they guided the raft upstream from the MIT boathouse using a sail and a system of vertical wooden boards that they raised and lowered through the raft's floor. Then, furling the sail, crew members headed back to the boathouse dock -- where they were greeted with a Mexican lunch. 