Yachtsman Ken'ichi Horie began his latest attempt to cross the Pacific Ocean alone in March 1999, this time aboard a boat made of beer kegs.

The 60-year-old adventurer began his journey on March 29 when he set sail from the Golden Gate Bridge in the U.S. city of San Francisco. He is scheduled to sail about 11,500 kilometers across the Pacific via Hawaii and reach Akashi Kaikyo Bridge in Japan about four months later. The journey will be Horie's eighth across the Pacific.

The yacht measures 10 meters long and 5.3 meters wide and is made from 528 stainless steel beer kegs, each weighing 4.3 kilograms. The ship was built in Mie Prefecture based on a design by 59-year-old yacht designer Kennosuke Hayashi, who also built the boats Horie used in his earlier trans-Pacific voyages. The design was altered several times to maximize safety and to attach the beer kegs more securely to one another.

The sails were specially developed from fabric that was produced using recycled plastic drinking bottles. The fabric is sufficiently strong to endure a four-month voyage.

Throughout the journey, wind vanes installed at the back of the ship will supply Horie with the electricity required to live at sea and to keep the yacht moving. Horie has brought a personal computer, a satellite phone system, and a digital camera on board to upload images of himself and the yacht at sea on a Website.

"I don't have any particular reason for sailing across the Pacific," Horie claimed before he began his latest adventure in San Francisco. "I just do it for the same reasons people climb mountains--simply because it's there."

In 1962 Horie became the first Japanese to travel solo across the Pacific Ocean. In 1985 he crossed the Pacific aboard a solar-powered boat, and in 1993 he traveled 7,500 kilometers from Hawaii to Okinawa on a paddle boat. In a voyage in 1996, Horie crossed the Pacific aboard a solar-powered boat made of aluminum beer cans.

Horie reached Honolulu on April 24 and left for his ultimate destination, Akashi Kaikyo Bridge, three days later on April 27.

Photo: Horie leaves San Francisco. Next stop: Honolulu. (Kyodo)