Meet the man behind The Brendan Voyage

Forty years ago, Tim Severin sailed across the Atlantic in a leather boat using only a medieval text as his guide. Donal O’Keeffe met the man behind The Brendan Voyage.

At 8pm on the evening of Sunday, June 26 1977, something historic happened at Peckford Island, Newfoundland. It was there that a tiny, open wooden boat, its leather skin only a quarter of an inch thick, touched the New World. Having set sail with a five-man crew from Brandon Creek in Dingle, Co Kerry, on Monday, May 17, 1976, the Brendan — a boat built using only techniques and materials available in sixth-century Ireland — had faced an arduous 4,500-mile (7,300km) journey and its prospects of success had been dismissed as impossible by many.

Hand-crafted with traditional tools, the 36-foot (11m), two-masted boat was built of Irish oak and ash, hand-lashed together with nearly two miles of leather thong, and wrapped with a patchwork of 49 traditionally tanned ox hides. The Brendan was then sealed with wool grease.