Dominique Görlitz may not have a sailing license, but he does have a dream: The man from the eastern German city of Chemnitz wants to cross the Atlantic from west to east on a reed boat built using prehistoric techniques. He plans to sail his 12-ton, 12.5-meter "Abora III" from New York to Portugal and Spain, via the Azores. His goal is to prove that it was possible to sail across the Atlantic as early as 14,000 years ago.

"Traces of tobacco plants and cocaine were found in Egypt, in the tombs of Ramses II and Tutankhamun, for example, that clearly came from the New World," Görlitz told SPIEGEL ONLINE. There is a lot of scientific evidence that a trans-Atlantic exchange took place between prehistoric cultures, he says.

He conjectures that there were trade relations between North America and northwestern Spain thousands of years before Columbus, and that some North American goods could have even made it to Africa. According to Görlitz, 14,000-year-old cave drawings from Spain indicate that the inhabitants of the region were knowledgeable about ocean currents in the Atlantic.

Surpassing Heyerdahl

Görlitz's role model and idol since childhood is Thor Heyerdahl, the Norwegian ethnologist who died in 2002. Heyerdahl, with his famous voyages on the "Kon-Tiki" and the "Ra II," wanted to prove that prehistoric peoples sailed the high seas. But despite his successful voyages, Heyerdahl's efforts were met with skepticism within the scientific community, especially when genetic researchers disproved his theories of the intermingling of South American and Polynesian cultures.

Görlitz, a former physical education and biology teacher, has also met with criticism from scientists, and he is aware of the limited validity of his expedition. "We cannot prove that such voyages did in fact take place, but we can prove that it would have been technically possible," says the 40-year-old, whose project is part of his doctoral thesis at the University of Bonn.

Unlike Heyerdahl, who sailed from Morocco to North America on the "Ra II" 37 years ago, Görlitz would have to build a boat that, thanks to stable leeboards, could also sail into the wind. His design makes it possible to sail at a 70-degree angle to the direction of the wind. "Thor Heyerdahl only sailed from East to West, with the wind at his back," says Görlitz. "You could toss a refrigerator into the water in Morocco and it would eventually end up in America."

As long as the boat holds up, a westward Atlantic crossing is easier than many a Mediterranean voyage. "Phoenician seafarers already knew how to tack against the wind," says Görlitz. "The crossing from Spain to Egypt demanded more of sailors than a voyage from Africa to America."

Test Run on the Hudson

Just as Heyerdahl had his "Ra II" built by Bolivian Indians on Lake Titicaca, Görlitz is also entrusting the building of his vessel to the technical skills of the region's Aymara tribe, which still uses reed boats today. After studying petroglyphs and the scholarly literature for many years, Görlitz attempted to build as authentic a boat as possible. The result closely resembles Heyerdahl's "Ra."

The hull was brought to New York in May, where the superstructure is currently being completed and preparations are underway for the launch. The "Abora III" will complete a test run on the Hudson River in mid-June before heading out to sea in early July, "as soon as we have good weather."

With high swells, sudden changes in wind direction and powerful storms, the more than 6,000-kilometer (3,728-mile) stretch across the North Atlantic will be extremely challenging for Görlitz and his 11-member crew. Some are veterans of voyages with the boat's predecessors, the "Abora I" and "Abora II," while the others were recruited through ads in magazines, on the Internet and on television.

Görlitz describes his crew as ordinary people from five different countries, people he believes have the strength of character to endure two months living in cramped quarters in the boat's two extremely small cabins. Five people will sleep next to each other in a space only 3 meters (about 10 feet) wide. The crew will do without the luxury of an onboard toilet, and there will be no boat accompanying the vessel for emergencies. But in one respect Görlitz has opted to dispense with prehistoric authenticity: He will use state-of-the-art GPS equipment to navigate the boat in the open ocean.

The adventure almost ended before it began, when US customs agents found a beetle in the hull as the boat was being brought into the United States. It was only when a zoologist was able to prove that it had come from the United States and not Bolivia that the unusual cargo was allowed to enter the country.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan