Drift Voyages from Western Hemisphere

One of the important things to keep in mind, is that the currents moving westward from Mexico and Guatemala (Mesoamerica) take a sailing ship directly to the Philippine Islands, north of Indonesia. However, drift voyages from the Andean coast (Peru, Ecuador and northern Chile) take a sailing ship to Polynesia.

Thor Heyerdahl proved the drift voyage route in the “Kon-Tiki” from Peru in 1947, across an area of the Pacific Ocean about the size of Western Europe, and landing in the Tuamotu Archipelago in French Polynesia.
(Left: Construction in progress of the Tangaroa at the navy shipyard at Callao, Peru, two weeks prior to launch)
60 years later, a more sophisticated vessel, the “Tangaroa,” sailed in a drift voyage from the Peruvian coast to the Polynesian islands, a distance of 4,620 miles from late April to early August 2006. The idea behind the design of the raft was to improve upon Thor Heyerdahl's 1947 “Kon-Tiki” expedition, and from a technical point of view, the ship’s sail was three times larger, and the ship itself larger and better built.
The “Tangaroa” also used a Polynesian design for a “guara,” a centerboard to steer the craft, which resulted in a shorter, and thus, faster journey. However, this was a drift voyage—that is, the ship rode on the currents and was driven forth before the wind as Nephi’s ship had been in 600 B.C.

Not only does this verify the fact that Hagoth’s ship that sailed to an unknown destination, would have been driven to Polynesia, but also shows why a weather-driven ship in 600 B.C., “driven forth before the wind” would have reached the area of Coquimbo Bay in Chile after setting sail from the southern Arabian coast and not reached Mesoamerica as so many theorists claim.

The problem with trying to prove a model for the Land of Promise based upon 21st century knowledge is that people today, unless they are experienced in the matter, tend to look at a map and say “this is where they went,” when, in reality, such a journey in such a direction would have been impossible at the time. This is true with Hugh Nibley’s course for the Jaredites over the sacred mountains of east China to the coast and directly across the Pacific, to John L. Sorenson’s claim that the Lehi Colony sailed east across the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean to Indonesia, then across the Pacific to Mesoamerica. Neither voyage would have been possible in 600 B.C., and actually not until around the 17th or 18th century.