HSU FU bamboo raft

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aukepalmhof
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HSU FU bamboo raft

Post by aukepalmhof » Sat Jun 16, 2018 3:19 am

Ancient Chinese texts tell the story of Hsu Fu, a navigator and explorer sent by the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, in 218 BC into the "Eastern Ocean" in search of life-prolonging drugs. Hsu Fu completed the voyage on a bamboo raft, which some believe took him to America and back.

Tim Severin set out to prove that such a voyage really could have been made. On the beach at Sam Son, Vietnam, he oversaw the construction of a 60-foot (18.3 m) long, 15-foot (4.6 m) wide raft built of 220 bamboos and rattan cording, and driven by an 800 square foot (74 square metre), junk-rigged sail. After leaving Asia in May 1993, Severin and his crew faced monsoons, pirates, and typhoons before the rattan began rotting and the raft began falling apart in the mid-Pacific. After travelling 5,500 miles (8,850 km) in 105 days, they were forced to abandon the raft about 1,000 miles (1,600 km) short of their destination.

Although the Hsu Fu, as the craft was named, did not complete the trip, Severin believed the voyage had accomplished its purpose. In The China Voyage, published in 1994, he wrote that the expedition had proved that a bamboo raft of the second century BC could, indeed, have made a voyage across the Pacific, just as Hsu Fu's account recorded.

More on the voyage you can find on: http://www.personal.psu.edu/pjc12/From% ... dition.htm

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Sever ... mber_1993)
Surinam 2018 SRD 19.00 sg?, scott?
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