The Brendan Voyage - Softcover

Severin, Timothy

4.25

1,691 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0380437112 ISBN 13: 9780380437115

Publisher: Avon Books, 1979

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For the Vikings, before Columbus, there was Saint Brendan. In perhaps the most exciting true adventure of the 1970s, explorer Tim Severin and a unique crew challenged the gale-lashed North Atlantic with its giant waves, killer whales, and treacherous necklace of pack ice to re-create the fabled discovery of America... by Irish sailor saints.

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From the Inside Flap:

Could an Irish monk in the sixth century really have sailed all the way across the Atlantic in a small open boat, thus beating Columbus to the New World by almost a thousand years? Relying on the medieval text of St. Brendan, award-winning adventure writer Tim Severin painstakingly researched and built a boat identical to the leather curragh that carried Brendan on his epic voyage. He found a centuries-old, family-run tannery to prepare the ox hides in the medieval way; he undertook an exhaustive search for skilled harness makers (the only people who would know how to stitch the three-quarter-inch-thick hides together); he located one of the last pieces of Irish-grown timber tall enough to make the mainmast. But his courage and resourcefulness were truly tested on the open seas, including one heart-pounding episode when he and his crew repaired a dangerous tear in the leather hull by hanging over the side--their heads sometimes submerged under the freezing waves--to restitch the leather. A modern classic in the tradition of Kon-Tiki, "The Brendan Voyage seamlessly blends high adventure and historical relevance. It has been translated into twenty-seven languages since its original publication in 1978.
With a new Introduction by Malachy McCourt, author of A Monk Swimming

From the Back Cover:

"Enthralling!"--The Guardian

"An extraordinary explorer." --The Independent

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