Distance: 7500 miles Tahiti to Chile, 5500 miles on return Team: 5 to 7 people Dimensions: Length 21 metres Beam 4 metres All standard marine safety equipment will be on board. VHF radio and GPS will only be used in case of extreme emergency. There will be no support boat.

AIMS OF THE PROJECT

• To construct a traditional double hulled canoe in Moorea - Vaiare, with trunks of "Totara" wood sourced from Okaihau , New Zealand .
• To sail from Tahiti to Chile , through Easter Island and back to Tahiti through the Marquesas Islands . Then to Aotearoa (New Zealand).
• To promote the history of Polynesian migrations, rekindle the links between two people that were once the same.
• To recognize and pay homage to ancestral maritime exploits and the initial bringing of the umara (kumara - sweet potato) to Polynesia from South America.
• To promote traditional construction techniques. To solely use ancestral navigation techniques - without modern navigational instruments and without a support boat.
• To offer the public worldwide an opportunity to learn about and participate in the construction and voyage of a Polynesian double hulled canoe (via an internet site, written and televised media)

THE ROUTE

The proposed route steers deep south from Moorea in French Polynesia to pick up the westerlies of the circumpolar lows that reach 35 th parallel from Antarctica during the southern hemisphere winter. The route is 5100 nautical miles long (9500 kilometres), a quarter of the way around the planet and equal to the distance from England to South Africa. Depending upon winds, the voyage could take between four and ten weeks. There will be a crew of up to ten people, all involved in the physical trimming of the canoe. All will sleep in shifts, with only the thin protection of a bamboo hut between them and the elements.

Modern safety equipment (rafts, GPS navigation equipment, flares and EPIRBs) will be carried for a worst-case eventuality but will remain in a sealed container all going well. The object of the voyage is to retrace the route as it might have been sailed 1000 years ago, without the use of modern equipment, materials, navigation devices or support boats. After all, the entire Pacific was once settled in this manner.