On St. Patrick’s Day, a repost about one other Irish saint, St. Brendan the Navigator, and the adventurer who sought to copy his epic voyage.
Who was the primary European to sail to North America? In accordance with Irish custom, it was St. Brendan the Navigator within the sixth century, who is alleged to have set off with a small group of monks in a currach, an open boat constructed with a picket body coated with hides, on a 7-year voyage across the North Atlantic, which will have reached North America. If the story is true, St. Brendan reached the “New World” tons of of years earlier than the Norse and virtually 900 years earlier than Columbus.
There isn’t any absolute proof that St. Brendan ever reached North America, though most of the islands visited within the medieval accounts seem like just like options of the Hebrides, the Faroe Islands, and Iceland. Within the Seventies, inveterate explorer Tim Severin determined to mount an expedition to see whether or not St. Brendan’s voyage was potential.
In 1976, Severin constructed a duplicate of Brendan’s currach. Handcrafted utilizing conventional instruments, the 36-foot, two-masted boat was constructed of Irish ash and oak, hand-lashed along with almost two miles (3 km) of leather-based thong, wrapped with 49 historically tanned ox hides, and sealed with wool grease. The completed currach was appropriately named Brendan.
Severin and his crew sailed from Tralee in Eire’s County Kerry on the Brendan, and, over greater than 13 months, traveled 4,500 miles, arriving at Canada on June 24, 1977, close to Peckford Island, Newfoundland. Severin advised reporters, “We’ve proved {that a} leather-based boat can cross the North Atlantic by a route that few trendy yachtsmen would try.”
Severin’s guide concerning the voyage, The Brendan Voyage: Crusing to America in a Leather-based Boat to Show the Legend of the Irish Sailor Saints, was a world bestseller. The boat Brendan is now on show on the Craggaunowen open-air museum in County Clare, Eire.
Tim Severin died on December 18, 2020, at 80, at dwelling in Timoleague, West Cork, Eire. To learn Joan Druett’s tribute to Tim Severin, click on right here.
