Kon-Tiki explorer dies at 87 From: Daily Mail | Date: April 19, 2002 | Copyright 2002 Daily Mail. Provided by ProQuest LLC.Copyright information

THOR Heyerdahl, the Norwegian explorer who crossed the Pacific on a balsa wood raft, has died at 87.

Heyerdahl, who won worldwide acclaim with his 1947 voyage on a replica of an Aboriginal balsa raft called Kon-Tiki, had been battling cancer.

The disease spread to his brain despite surgery last year. He died at a family home in Colla Micheri in northern Italy. He is best remembered for his 101-day voyage in 1947 from South America to Polynesia on the Kon-Tiki, defying experts' predictions he and his crew would drown.

He wanted to prove that South Americans were the first people to reach ...