The patience of seafarers is what we need thetimes.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from thetimes.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Words of an old air have been flitting around my head for weeks now. “The sea, oh the sea, is grá geal mo chroí.” This anthem to the briny foam speaks much to the spirit of our island nation, and the maritime link to the danger and daring of life before the mast.
In the tumult of Christmas week, it almost passed unnoticed that one of Ireland’s greatest seafarers, Tim Severin, had trimmed the sails for his final voyage upon uncharted waters. An adventurer like they don’t make any more, he cut his youthful teeth following Marco Polo’s overland route on a motorbike, and saddling up with Mongol horsemen in the footsteps of Genghis Khan.
Tim Severin was an Oxford undergraduate when he set off to recreate Marco Polo’s 13th-century journey from Italy to China along the Silk Road in 1961. “Three of us travelled in two motorcycles with
Sailor in leather boat challenged theory Columbus first to America
We’re sorry, this service is currently unavailable. Please try again later.
Dismiss
Sailor in leather boat challenged theory Columbus first to America
January 6, 2021 12.52pm
Normal text size
Advertisement
Tim Severin, a British adventurer who for 40 years meticulously replicated the journeys of real and mythic explorers like St. Brendan the Navigator, Sinbad the Sailor and Marco Polo, died aged 80 on December 18 at his home in West Cork, Ireland.
In May 1976, Severin left Ireland on his most audacious voyage: following in the wake of St. Brendan, a sixth-century monk, who, with a party of other monks, is said to have made a spectacular journey from Ireland across the Atlantic to North America, “Promised Land”, in a leather-wrapped boat.