Acali

The Acali expedition (or Acali experiment or the Sex Raft) was a 1973 social experiment that aimed to investigate interpersonal relationships in conditions of limited space and social isolation. The experiment was organized by Mexican anthropologist Santiago Genovés, who had previously been a crew member of Thor Heyerdahl's Ra expedition.

The raft had a complement of eleven people: five men and six women. Genovés believed that making difference in sexual count increases the possible outcome for the experiment's aim. Genovés believed that the crew members would turn to violence and aggression, but during the experiment the participants showed a restraint towards aggression. This frustrated Genovés and led him to start to try to create conflict, and at one point he took command of the float. Despite these attempts, the group remained peaceful.

The raft 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. Frequently dubbed the "Sex Raft" by the media, it was the subject of a 2018 documentary film The Raft, by Marcus Lindeen. The expression 'sex raft' came from the newspapers, as well as focus on sexual activities on the raft. This angered Genovés, and he was especially hurt by some of his long-time colleagues saying the publicity of the raft is hurting the university.

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 it was 12 metres in length with 7 metres beam and 2 metres in depth. The cabin measured 4 × 4 metres. It was designed by José Antonio Mandri and Colin Mudie, and it was built in Newcastle upon Tyne, England.

The raft had no motor, it had no boats following it and it deliberately had no way of turning back.

Background of the experiment

Santiago Genovés was a scientist studying aggression, violence and friction between people. He personally was aboard a plane in November 1972 that was hijacked and taken to Cuba, which inspired him. He believed that in crisis situations humans would show their "true behavior", which was the way we could learn about human nature. This lead to him trying to figure out a way to somehow replicate a situation where group of people would be isolated from the rest of the world. He had also previously been an earlier participant on the Ra (1969) and Ra II (1970) expeditions, Thor Heyerdahl’s ethnohistorical attempts to prove that prehistoric civilizations could have crossed the Atlantic by means of papyrus-constructed boats. He had been intrigued with the incidents of friction that he had witnessed, and he believed further studies of human behaviour under stressful conditions were justified.

Characteristics of the experiment

The experiment was sponsored by the National Autonomous University of Mexico and by Mexican television station Channel 13.

Participants had to sign a document in which they voluntarily agreed to be part of the experiment and undergo the different studies. In it Santiago Genovés, as director general of the experiment, was authorized for the use of the material collected by the studies. The document also released the sponsors from any responsibility in the event of death.

Prior to the trip, participants underwent various medical tests. In addition, they performed psychiatric examinations, as well as psychological and graphological tests. Through these data it was tried to predict what the relationships between these people were going to be.

During the trip, crew members had to fill out periodic questionnaires about their personal relationships with the other participants, their mood, their perception of the experiment, their behavior and other aspects. Most of the questionnaires were previously designed but others were conducted on the fly.

Meanwhile, researchers such as anthropologists, psychologists and sociologists studied the things that were said about the participants. The personal annotations of Santiago Genovés were also part of the data that was to be studied.

At the end of the trip, participants had to remain isolated for a week where they were again subjected to studies by sociologists, psychiatrists, psychologists and other scientists.

Participants

Name	Age	Gender	Nationality	Role
Santiago Genovés Tarazaga	49	male	Spanish-Mexican	Anthropologist, devised the experiment
José María Montero Pérez	34	male	Uruguay	Anthropologist, former student of Genovés
Servane Zanotti	32	female	French	Scuba diver, responsible for conducting a study on pollution
Charles Antoni	37	male	Cypriot	Radio operator
Rachida Mazani	23	female	Algerian	Responsible for conducting a study on pollution
Mary Gidley	36	female	American	Some knowledge of navigation
Fé Evangelina Seymour	23	female	American	Radio operator
Maria Björnstam	30	female	Swedish	Captain of the expedition
Edna Jonas	32	female	Czechoslovak resident in Israel	Doctor
Bernardo Bongo	29	male	Angolan	Priest
Eisuke Yamaki	29	male	Japanese	Cameraman

The participants were chosen based on following criteria:

“1. married and parents, or involved in a relationship—that is, people who had something to lose, who were not coming to find adventure or fame;

2. of a distinct nationality; 3. as a group, able to meet the requirements of the raft. That is, we needed one sea professional, a doctor, a radio operator, a frogman, a photographer, an expert in sea pollution, etc.”

And indeed, most participants were married. He also deliberately recruited women and men he had judged sexually attractive to increase sexual tension (unlike the all-male Ra expeditions).

Captain Björnstam was the only professional sailor on board. In general, Genovés had planned the expedition so that the more important roles in the raft would go to women, and the men would have supporting roles. He was curious as to what women in power would do to the group dynamic and if it would result in less or more violence.

Events during the expedition

At the very beginning of the expedition, Björnstam's boyfriend told her that the contract she had been asked to sign was essentially a slave contract, and he demanded she should choose between him and going to the expedition. Björnstam chose to remain on the expedition, though she did emphasize she did not sign the contract.

Every two days the raft would get a weather report and once a week it would send out a report about how it's going. The participants were also expected to participate in weekly filling of a questionnaire, which some of the questions being things like who do you like or don't like, or your sex or masturbation behavior on the boat. Every week they were also made to draw a tree as a graphology test.

The participants weren't allowed to read books, so, as examples of entertainment, they participated in singing songs and tell each other stories. There was sex happening in the raft between some of the members. The "toilet" was a hole in the raft that was quite visible, on purpose.

At one point of the expedition the participants caught a shark, which they killed with an axe. This prompted Genovés to think that primitive, violent instinct had woken. To him, this was the violent behavior he had been waiting for, and he considered it a breakthrough.

During the expedition, Genovés made notes of mental state of each of the participants as well as physiological state, including e.g. menstrual periods, and compared it with the weather, the state of the moon, the temperature and other external factors.

Once the rudder of the raft broke. It was a task for Zanotti, the scuba diver, but Genovés explained that he couldn't take the risk of sending down a woman. He insisted on doing the task himself. Zanotti helped him to prepare for the dive, but once he did the dive, he almost drowned and failed to perform the task. Zanotti performed the task of repairing the rudder the next morning before Genovés woke up. This angered Genovés when he found out. It was explained by other participants that Genovés had issues letting women to perform any important tasks, even though that was one point of the expedition that he himself planned.

Halfway through the trip Genovés realized that the crew members were not exhibiting any violent behavior and questionnaires weren't leading anywhere either. He started to get frustrated and unhappy with their behavior. He called a meeting, where he explained that participants were getting too comfortable with each other and things needed to change. He started reading the answers of questionnaires out loud to provoke reactions. He thought that people were afraid of confrontation and weren't open about what they really feel about each other, and that needed to stop, so he would get some material to study. According to people in the document, Genovés also threw a bucket full of water on one of the participants, and called another a primitive, lazy and a thief. He also went from one person to another and tried to provoke them with things somebody else had said about them.

At some point of the expedition the participants were informed that there was a hurricane coming. Maria as the captain insisted they should take refuge in a caribbean island, stop the experiment and contact civilization. Genovés thought that would contaminate the experiment and that they should "continue no matter what", "for the sake of science". Since Björnstam said she couldn't take that responsibility as a captain, Genovés told her she was no longer the captain of the raft and appointed himself as the captain. He ordered everyone to prepare for the storm and wait inside the cabin. The hurricane had missed them. Björnstam pointed out in the documentary, that the act of Genovés is to be regarded as mutiny, punishable by death.

Some of the members also had a meeting discussing that Genovés is a threat, and if they should get rid of him through an "accident". They discussed forcing him off board or stealing some medicine and giving him a lethal injection to stop his heart. They however decided against it.

At some point Genovés realized that he was the only one aboard that had shown any aggression at any point of the trip.

There was an incident where a huge ship was headed in the raft's direction. Genovés panicked, but Björnstam remained calm and gave the crew instructions. They used flares and radio to try to get the ship's attention. The ship stopped at the last minute and changed course, leaving the raft unharmed. After that, Björnstam was again regarded as the captain by everyone.

This changed Genovés's behavior: he stopped doing questionnaires, writing notes and giving orders. He withdrew from others and became ill. Other participants didn't believe he was really sick. They became a very closely tied group by themselves.

The raft arrived successfully. Most of the participants regarded the experiment as a success.

See also

• Stanford prison experiment (1971)

External links

• Raft of Passion – Episode of Snap Judgement in which Mary Gidley recounts her experience with the Acali experiment
• The Raft – Documentary film where Lindeen invited the surviving rafters – all six women and the only male still alive, Eisuke, the Japanese cameraman – to reunite in a film studio in Stockholm and recount their experiences