Eight men and a duck

On a fateful South American bus trip, journalist Nick Thorpe overheard an improbable plan: to sail 2500 miles to Easter Island on a boat made of reeds. Inspired by this modern-day Kon-Tiki, he blagged his way on board only to find himself with nagging questions. Why did the crew include a tree surgeon, a jewellery salesman and a duck? What had happened to the navigator? Did anybody actually know how to sail? And, most importantly, where was the life raft?Eight Men and a Duck charts this most eccentric of Pacific voyages as it lurched between high drama and high farce: the slow-motion launch that took five days to complete; the bungled phone call that triggered a naval rescue alert; and the constant race against the inexorable sinking of the soggy hull.