|  Posted on December 18th,2009Last Winter we finally read one of Tim Severin’s books,The China Voyage:Across The Pacific By Bamboo Raft and posted some reactions,all positive. One of our friends said,at the time,that if we liked that book,Severin’s The Brendan Voyage:Across the Atlantic in a Leather Boat was better still. Well,we finally read it. And we concur. It is an absolutely fantastic read. The Brendan Voyage is also half sailing yarn and half archeological text. There is,apparently,a medieval Irish text,Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis, that tells of a voyage St. Brendan took in the North Atlantic in a leather boat,what we now call a curragh. It is,in fact,conceivable to interpret the text to say that St. Brendan and a crew of Irish monks reached Newfoundland around the sixth century,long before Leif Erikson’s boys and WAAAYYY before that poser Columbus. Scholars,of course,disagree about the extent to which it is factual or fantasy. One of the grounds for skepticism was that a leather boat could never make such a voyage. Severin set out to build a replica,using sixth-century technology,and sail it from Ireland to North America,specifically Newfoundland,Canada. Given the subtitle,I don’t think I am a spoiler to say that the crew proves the hypothesis and completes the voyage,adding evidence to support the Irish being the first Europeans to hit these shores. Everything about the book is amazing. » Continue reading Fantastic read:Tim Severin’s “The Brendan Voyage” » Posted on September 30th,2009 
The latest issue of Outside Magazine includes a great article titled “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea”about a six-person crew’s voyage in a hand-made,21′,open sloop from the southern coast of Haiti to Florida. The goal was to trace the route of refugees in a native craft. This is one of those voyages that gamely straddle the boundary between bravery and hubris. The voyage was successful,but it easily could have gone the other way. It was poorly equipped and used a boat that may be fine for coastal fishing but was not designed for open ocean crossings. I love that they used a traditional boat and I’m glad they made it,but the story reads as a bit too much tempting the sea.
Posted on March 5th,2009 
OK –here’s the deal:We have had some stuff going on,we haven’t been able to post in a bit,and we’ve built up a nice backlog on posts. And it JUST SO HAPPENS that two of them tonight involve the writing of Tom Jackson of WoodenBoat. Pure coincidence,folks. Let’s can those man-crush comments right now.
» Continue reading Wonderful detail on the viking longship Havhingsten fra Glendalough »
Posted on February 24th,2009
I actually had the crazed idea to read a book recently. Doesn’t happen much –I am lucky if I can clear my magazine rack in a given month. Long on my to do list,though,had been reading some of Tim Severin’s works. Severin is an Irishman (at least he lives there) with an fascinating joint interest in history,archeology,and epic voyages,mostly maritime ones. Sound intriguing? It gets better. Severin’s shtick has been to identify an unproven or poorly understood historical journey,build a traditional boat,if a maritime one,that represents the type of that era,and then recreate the journey to see if it could have happened as theorized. Oh yeah,I am IN! I have known about him for a while and only just got around to checking him out.
I began with The China Voyage:Across The Pacific By Bamboo Raft. Apparently there are a group of archeologists who believe (or believed,as of the early 1990s) that there was contact between East Asian cultures and Central American cultures within the last couple millennia. » Continue reading Thinking about a ocean voyage on a bamboo raft? Read “The China Voyage” » Posted on January 24th,2009 
Gavin over at intheboatshed pointed us to The Invisible Workshop,a nice blog run by a Brit living in Catalonia,Spain. The author,Ben,built a boat,ONAWIND BLUE,to Gavin’s Light Trow design. Ben seems to camp-cruise the boat around the Western Mediterranean. We are eager to understand how he has formed this enviable life. The blog is also a great source for information on traditional Spanish boats. Ben,you have already contributed greatly to the Iberian section of my Traditional Boats of the World project. There are some really gorgeous boats there and I’d encourage folks to delve deeper into Ben’s posts on the subject as there are many more pictures than the one-of-each I plot on the map. As of this moment,any boat plotted in Spain is courtesy of Ben. Many thanks! Posted on August 7th,2007 
The American Rivers blog found this enticing idea –The Northern Forest Canoe Trail,a paddling trail from upstate New York to Northern Maine using traditional routes. Posted on September 19th,2006 
Staying in the same part of the world –and I mean the South Pacific,not Western PA –I note this project:“A Voyaging Canoe for Tikopia,”sponsored by British designer James Wharram. Wharram aims to build two double canoes in the voyaging canoe tradition of the South Western Pacific and donate them to two islands in order to perpetuate their autonomy and their traditions. We should build 2 Tikopian Double Canoes (by Andy Smith,our builder in the Philippines) and give them to the islands of Tikopia and Anuta (its sister island),so they can continue to be self-sufficient and take pride in their ancient sailing heritage. The two canoes would then be sailed the 3000 miles to Tikopia along the ancient Polynesian migration route for handing over to the islanders.
They seem to be asking for various sorts of assistance. I assume this is legit –Wharram is,I believe,an established designer –and the cause is good. A while ago I read The Happy Isles of Oceana:Paddling the Pacific,by Paul Theroux,and,without openly pointing fingers,many of the Pacific islands have had their culture and traditions ransacked over the last few centuries. These were some of the great seafaring people of history,and many now have no connection to the amazing skills and voyages of their ancestors. That is really sad. Good for Wharram to try to pull this off. Location:Tikopia,Solomon Islands Posted on September 14th,2006 Posted on December 31st,2005 I recently completed At the Mercy of the River:An Exploration of the Last African Wilderness ,an account of the first decent (by kayak) of the Lugenda River in Mozambique. It was written by Outside contributor Peter Stark,who was invited on the five-person trip to document it. As books from this genre go,it is pretty good. There is a decent amount of adventure complemented by the de rigeur philosophizing. In this case,Starks muses on exploration in general and African exploration in particular,infusing it with a healthy dose of the history of European “exploration”of Africa. He does this well,and it never bogs down the adventure. I recommend it for those who like this type of book. If you are interested in getting a flavor of the scenery in this area,much of the trip takes place along the Niassa Reserve,and its site has some nice images and maps. The book was also excerpted in the March 2003 issue of Outside. | |
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