Acali


The Acali was a raft which was used in the Acali Expedition or Acali Experiment. The raft had a complement of eleven people: five men and six women. It left Las Palmas, Spain on 12 May 1973 and took 101 days to drift across the Atlantic Ocean and reach Cozumel, Mexico, with a single stopover in Barbados. The experiment was conceived by Mexican anthropologist Santiago Genovés to investigate interpersonal relationships in conditions of limited space and social isolation.

The raft

The name of the raft, Acali, comes from the Nahuatl language and means "the house on the water".
The raft was built specifically for the experiment. It had a steel hull and dimensions of 12m x 7m. The cabin measured 4m x 3.9m in area and 1.4m in height. It was designed by José Antonio Mandri and Colin Mudie, and built in Newcastle, UK.

Participants