brendan voyage book

Tim Severin

• Saxon Series

The Brendan Voyage

‘A truly awesome sight loomed up out of the dark just downwind of us – the white and serrated edge of a massive floe, twice the size of Brendan and glinting with malice’

It has been described as the greatest epic voyage in modern Irish history.

Tim Severin and his companions built a boat using only techniques and materials available in the sixth-century A.D., when St Brendan was supposed to have sailed to America. The vessel comprised forty-nine ox hides stitched together in a patchwork and stretched over a wooden frame. This leather skin was only a quarter of an inch thick. Yet Severin and his crew sailed Brendan from Brandon Creek in Dingle to Newfoundland, surviving storms and a puncture from pack ice. The Brendan Voyage is Tim Severin’s dramatic account of their journey. This new edition of a book already translated into twenty-seven languages introduces a new generation of readers to an enduring classic.

Tim Severin didn’t prove St Brendan reached America, only that he could have, that it was possible. Brilliantly written, The Brendan Voyage conveys unforgettably the sensation of being in a small, open boat in the vastness of the North Atlantic, visited by inquisitive whales, reaching mist-shrouded landfalls, and receiving a welcome from seafaring folk wherever the crew touched land.

• Written by: Tim Severin
• Published by: Modern Library
• Date published: 4th April 2000
• ISBN: 9780375755248
• Available in paperback and ebook

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The Brendan Voyage: Across the Atlantic in a Leather Boat Paperback – May 24 2005

Purchase options and add-ons.

• Book 1 of 6 Voyage
• Print length 296 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Gill & MacMillan
• Publication date May 24 2005
• Dimensions 13.34 x 1.91 x 21.59 cm
• ISBN-10 0717139271
• ISBN-13 978-0717139279
• See all details

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Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Gill & MacMillan (May 24 2005)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 296 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0717139271
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0717139279
• Item weight ‏ : ‎ 439 g
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 13.34 x 1.91 x 21.59 cm
• #25 in Travel Writing Guides
• #1,461 in Travel (Books)
• #4,785 in Biographies & Memoirs (Books)

About the author

Tim severin.

TIM SEVERIN has made a career of retracing the storied journeys of mythical and historical figures. He has sailed a leather boat across the Atlantic in the wake of the Irish monk Saint Brendan, captained an Arab sailing ship from Muscat to China, steered the replica of a Bronze Age galley to seek the landfalls of Jason and the Argonauts and Ulysses, ridden the route of the First Crusade from a castle in Belgium to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, travelled on horseback with the nomads of Mongolia to explore the heritage of Genghis Khan, sailed the Pacific on a bamboo raft to test the theory that ancient Chinese mariners could have travelled to the Americas, retraced the journeys of Alfred Russel Wallace, Victorian pioneer naturalist, through the Spice Islands of Indonesia aboard a native sailing vessel, identified the facts behind the story of Moby Dick the fighting white whale among the native peoples of the Pacific islands, and discovered the origins of the ‘real’ Robinson Crusoe in the adventures of a castaway stranded 300 years ago on a desert island off the coast of Venezuela.

As a historical novelist he has written the best-selling VIKING and HECTOR LYNCH trilogies. The Book of Dreams, the first volume of his SAXON trilogy was published in August 2012

His travels have been the subject of award winning documentary films and a major BBC documentary series, and are collected under the title TIME TRAVELLER. They have been screened on Discovery Channel, Sky Television, and National Geographic TV, and he has written regularly about his expeditions in the National Geographic Magazine. He has won the Thomas Cook Travel Book award, The Book of the Sea Award, a Christopher Prize, the Sykes Medal of the Society of Asian Affairs, and the literary Medal of the Academie de Marine. His replica boats have become museum exhibits. In l986 he was awarded the Gold Medal (Founder's Medal) of the Royal Geographical Society for his research into early voyages, and in 1987 the Livingstone Medal of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. In 1996 he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Letters, honoris causa, by Trinity College, Dublin, and in 2003 received an Honorary Doctorate from the National University of Ireland.

He lives in Co. Cork, Ireland.

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The Brendan Voyage

© 2023 M.H. Gill & Co. Unlimited Company

The Brendan Voyage

• Post author By Simon King
• Post date July 24, 2020

You could say that Tim Severin is a historical re-enactor, but that would conjure all the wrong images, of renaissance fairs and Colonial Williamsburg. At nearly 80 years old, his accomplishments are better described as experiential archaeology , recreating legendary journeys to prove they could have happened. His historical adventures are based on years of upfront study, working with scholars to decipher ancient texts and find period-appropriate technology and materials. I only recently learned about Severin’s work, through his 1978 book that documents a fascinating early project called The Brendan Voyage .

In the 6th-century, an Irish monk named St. Brendan wrote the Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis (The Voyage of St. Brendan the Abbot), a document describing a westward sea journey to the “promised land” that some believe was North America. The journey included numerous stops at islands along the way, and he described seeing fantastic sights and creatures from aboard his medieval “skin boat.” Although some scholars interpret the monk’s manuscript figuratively, others subscribe to the belief that it is more travelogue than fable. That question is at the heart of The Brendan Voyage , Severin’s project to recreate St. Brendan’s journey and prove that a leather-clad sailboat could successfully traverse the North Atlantic.

“Of course, if the claim was true, then Saint Brendan would have reached America almost a thousand years before Columbus and four hundred years before the Vikings.” The Brendan Voyage by Tim Severin, Chapter 1

Severin’s first task, which took years of hard work, was the creation of a boat that would match the one used by St. Brendan. In The Brendan Voyage he describes a process of researching, learning, and collaborating with various experts. The energy surrounding the project is contagious, and propelled by what he calls “Brendan Luck” that seems to grace him throughout the project.

The traditional Irish curragh , which is still in use today on the west coast of Ireland, is a descendent of the boat that St. Brendan would have sailed. In modern times, canvas is stretched over the wooden frame, but the Navigatio describes a boat covered with oxhide. This was the first materials challenge for Severin, and initial tests showed that leather would deteriorate quickly in sea water.

Luckily the text provides additional clues, describing the leather as “tanned in oak bark” and coated in “grease” to make it water proof. After numerous lab studies it was proven that, indeed, oak bark was the best leather treatment. Severin found a single tannery in Britain that could help, run by the Croggon family in the Cornish town of Grampound. They had been using traditional tanning techniques since they opened in 1711, and as Brendan Luck would have it, they were enthusiastic about the project.

“So began a delightful period of work. The British leather industry took the Brendan project to heart, and what splendid people the leathermakers turned out to be.” The Brendan Voyage by Tim Severin, Chapter 2

The manuscript describes applying “grease” to the leather, and even mentions bringing extra grease on the journey for re-application. These kinds of details further convinced Severin that he was reading the documentation of a real trip. It’s easy to determine that this must have been lanolin or “wool grease,” a wax that secreted by sheep. Severin and his crew applied it liberally to the oak bark leather and described the resulting stench as nearly unbearable.

“I wonder if you could supply me with some wool grease.” “Yes, of course. How much do you want?” “About three-quarters of a ton, please.” There was stunned silence. The Brendan Voyage by Tim Severin, Chapter 2

The remaining challenges of building Brenden , a 36-foot medieval boat were numerous and back breaking. Just the right cuts of oak and ash were found to build the mast and hull—apparently the north side of the tree is the strongest. Joints were lashed together with miles of leather stripping, and 49 overlapping ox hides were stitched together with flax cords. Brendan Luck struck again when Severin learned that John O’Connell, a master harness maker, lived nearby where the boat was being built. He joined the project and taught Severin and a team of volunteers how to stitch the thick leather. Once on the ocean their lives would depend on the quality of every stitch and knot, a reality that hung heavy over the slow and strenuous work.

For more detail on the boat’s construction I suggest checking out the article Across the Atlantic in a Leather Boat , which includes relevant excepts from the book and broader information on traditional skin boats in other parts of the world.

Tim Severin's The Brendan Voyage

While cataloguing the Irish Folklife currach collection, I am always conscious that the boats I am working on are as far from their natural environment as they could possibly be. While most of them once worked the inshore fishing spots of the Irish west coast and rested out in the open when not in use, they are now safely stored indoors in environmentally controlled conditions that will ensure their preservation. As a result of their being stored indoors, both prior to and after the National Museum of Ireland acquired them, the skins of some of our boats have dried out and become hard and inflexible. Except for those who have taken to the water in a currach over a lengthy period, it is difficult to appreciate how their simple design and natural materials will perform when faced with the harsh truths of the sea and the elements. Part of my work on our planned boat gallery at the National Museum of Ireland – Country Life is to talk to fishermen who worked, and still work, with currachs to understand the boat’s capabilities. Unfortunately, pandemic restrictions have prevented me from carrying out fieldwork and interviews but there are sources that provide first-hand accounts of experiencing travel by currach. Tim Severin’s book The Brendan Voyage is one of those sources.

Tim Severin (1940-2020). Photograph from www.timseverin.net.

Tim Severin was an explorer, author and historian who sadly passed away last month at the age of 80. Throughout 1976-1977, Severin led a small group of fellow explorers as they sailed the journey from Ireland west across the Atlantic Ocean to the Promised Land believed to have been completed by Saint Brendan in the sixth century. Saint Brendan had made the journey in a large currach made of a wooden frame and covered with tanned oxhides. Severin’s aim was to see whether Saint Brendan’s journey had been possible and to do that the group’s vessel would have to be as close a replica of the saint’s boat as possible which also meant using materials and building methods from that time.

The Brendan currach under construction in Crosshaven Boatyard showing its primitive wooden skeleton and hide skin. Photograph by Ian Yeomans.

The finished 36 foot boat, named Brendan, had a double gunwale of oak. Leather thongs were used to lash the ash frame together and the outside of the hull was then covered with 49 quarter of an inch thick oxhides that were stitched together and finished with a wool grease coating. Brendan’s two masts and oars were also made from ash and flax made suitable sails and ropes.

The Brendan currach. Photograph by Cotton Coulson.

The impressive construction of the boat was informed by thorough research, but how would she handle on the open waters of the rough Atlantic? Here, The Brendan Voyage gives us many practical and poetic descriptions of Brendan’s capabilities. Severin describes how Brendan’s light frame meant the boat could mould to the many waves that pounded its shell. The flexibility offered by the leather skin developed in Severin ‘a sense of being part of the sea’s motion’. He believed the leather survived so well in part due to the cold waters of the Atlantic.

The sides of the boat pumped gently in and out as though the Brendan were breathing

When Brendan was holed by drifting ice in the dangerous stretch between Greenland and Newfoundland, crew member George Molony had the unpleasant job of hanging over the gunwale in water temperatures as low as zero degrees centigrade in order to patch and stitch the hull while the boat kept sailing. Up to that point, ice had been glancing rather harmlessly off the curved hull of the currach.

Patches on the canvas skin of a National Museum of Ireland currach from Inis Oírr. © National Museum of Ireland.

The combination of Brendan’s medieval design and natural materials made it an extremely durable boat. Even during sea trials in advance of launching from Ireland, deliberate attempts to capsize Brendan were extraordinarily difficult. The currach could also be fast, when conditions were right. Brendan’s best 24-hour distance was an impressive 115 miles. Brendan reached her destination in June 1977. The large currach’s epic journey had proven that, in Tim Severin’s own words, ‘she was a true ocean-going vessel, and there was no longer any practical objection to the idea that Irish monks might have sailed their leather boats to North America before the Norsemen, and long before Columbus.’

My thanks to Afloat.ie for assistance in sourcing images.

Severin, Tim, The Brendan Voyage , London: Arrow Books Ltd., 1979.

Comments about this page

Hello Bill. The Brendan boat is on public display at Craggaunowen Castle in Co. Clare.

I just finished reading the Modern Library Exploration Edition of The Brendan Voyage and was amazed at the determination of the Crew through the entire process. I did wonder if the Brendan went to a museum after her adventure? It would have been a task to keep her in seaworthy condition, but as an old Sailor I hope she is still around. Great book overall.

Had the honor to meet Tim Severin onboard NatGeo’s Explorer May 2019 when he was a guest lecturer. He was engaging and his explorations so interesting. His contribution appreciated.

He will be missed by all.

Reading this brought back childhood memories of when the Brendan had to make an unscheduled stop at Ballywhoriskey along the Fanad coastline. I just submitted my words on it.

Thanks for your brief synopsis, it is a fascinating story. Mr Severin was a very brave man obviously a driven man but he must have done his research to a great extent to gather confidence for the journey. I love the sea but the thoughts of that challenge that they did with great success was truely remarkable. So proud of my name and of Mr. Severin. What a man!

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Book Review: The Brendan Voyage

Posted by Ann Hoffner | Book Reviews , Dogwatch , Reviews

Good Old Boat  uses affiliate links and may earn a small commission if you purchase anything after clicking through one of them. This comes at no cost to you. 

The book, a remarkable tale of twentieth century survival at sea, is the work of a man who billed himself an explorer/traveler and earned degrees in history and geography at Oxford during which he traced Marco Polo’s caravan route on a motorcycle. He made a life of recreating and then writing/filming historical explorations.

Saint Brendan the Navigator’s original voyage is told in the Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis, a Latin text written somewhat after the fact that has been the subject of much speculation. Severin, along with his wife, a medieval scholar, thought the trip could have been possible and wanted to prove it. In his book he recounts the years spent acquiring materials (including 49 oxhides which had to be stitched together with flax) and details of boat design based on the traditional curraghs of the West Irish coast, which are still in use.

If Severin’s book were simply his descriptions of building the Brendan and recreating Saint Brendan’s voyage, I would not be writing this review. Instead, The Brendan Voyage is one of the more swashbuckling sea stories I’ve read, describing in vivid language gales along the North Atlantic “stepping-stone” route through the islands off Ireland and Scotland, Iceland, and Greenland to the coast of Newfoundland, a route Severin notes sailing yachts stay away from. Life on the 36-foot Brendan is degrees harder than anything most modern sailors encounter on the ocean. The longest stretch encountered by the four-person crew, fifty days, took them into the ice pack west of Greenland where there was a real risk of losing the boat and their lives, even though they had a life raft, the conditions being so extreme. As part of his proof that Saint Brendan could have done the trip, Severin points to several periods of climate warming in the medieval ages when there would have been little or no sea ice.

The reader develops a visceral sense of the open leather boat which had a sea motion “more like a life raft than a conventional vessel. She heaved and swayed, then bobbed, swayed and heaved…” Brendan was covered more or less successfully with tarps, and her sides were low enough that the crew were almost eyelevel with the whales that visited on many occasions.

Whether indeed Saint Brendan and his Irish monks made the voyage, Severin and the Brendan’s safe arrival in Canada shows that a leather boat could. For me it was an interesting revelation that Irish people explored far and wide on the northern seas, like the Polynesian navigators in the Pacific helping to expand the world long before the Vikings and the Europeans and showing my own ancestors to be great explorers.

The Brendan Voyage: Sailing to America in a Leather Boat to Prove the Legend of the Irish Sailor Saints , by Tim Severin (Modern Library, 2000)

About The Author

Ann Hoffner

Ann Hoffner and her husband, photographer Tom Bailey, spent 10 years cruising on their Peterson 44, Oddly Enough. They sold the boat in Borneo, returned to the US, and bought a Cape Dory 25 in Maine. Ann is a long-time contributor to sailing magazines, most often writing about weather events on passage and places she's been.

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The brendan voyage by tim severin.

The Brendan Voyage is the real life adventure story of a man who tried to recreate a Medieval legend: sailing across the North Atlantic from Ireland to America in a small leather boat.

The Brendan Voyage: Sailing to America in a Leather Boat to Prove the Legend of the Irish Sailor Saints by Tim Severin. Modern Library, 2000 (first published 1978).

Reading Level: Adult, ages 16 and up

Recommended For : Ages 12 and up

When I was in school, we learned that “Columbus discovered America.” But most scholars now are pretty sure Vikings reached the Americas before Columbus… and some of the Irish.

The Brendan Voyage is about one man’s attempt to prove the possibility that St. Brendan, a Medieval Irish monk, traveled to North America in a small leather boat. After all, if it’s possible, then the legends may be based on fact. Tim Severin researched Medieval boat construction, tracked down obscure practitioners of such traditional crafts as oak-tanning leather, and gathered a crew of laborers and sailors. Months of preparation led up to the planned launch date (on St. Brendan’s day, naturally). His crew of 5 were as prepared as they could be when they set sail in a tiny leather boat. Their route: to follow the North Atlantic “stepping stone” route up past Ireland, to the Hebrides, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, and eventually Canada. If you know your geography, this sounds like a doable–but very cold and dangerous–route, even in modern ocean-going vessels. Would it work in a small leather boat?

Part history, part geography, part natural history, part adventure story, The Brendan Voyage grabs readers from page one. Severin mixes in fascinating historical details as he describes his process from the birth of his crazy idea to its fulfillment. Along the way, he includes much information about early Medieval Christianity. Severin is respectful of the monks’ religion and goes to great lengths to demonstrate that their accounts of sea monsters, men on fire, and other wildly improbable happenings could have actually happened . Rather than disproving the monks’ veracity, he adds credibility to their stories.

Danger on the high seas, literary legends, interesting boat construction–this is a book that should particularly appeal to guys. Girls will enjoy it, too, but men risking danger and building stuff… and then sailing off with a crew of men… Well, it begs for a high school boy audience.

Considerations:

• Language: there is a small amount of profanity in this book, usually during times of great danger/stress.
• Some editions include great photographs that may not translate well in the kindle/digital editions.
• If your kids read this book, it’s worth asking them about the “Brendan luck.” What does Severin mean? Is there another explanation? What would the Medieval monks have said?

Overall Rating: 4.5/5

• Worldview/Moral Rating: 4.25
• Literary Rating: 4.75

Recommended Reading from Redeemed Reader:

• A Book Review: Unbroken . Another true story on the high seas.
• A Book Review: The Boys in the Boat (another great story about boats!)
• A Book List : Learning to Lead (full of epic true stories)

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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... Read Full Overview

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The Voyage of Saint Brendan: The Navigator Paperback – August 4, 2013

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• Print length 117 pages
• Language English
• Publication date August 4, 2013
• Dimensions 5 x 0.28 x 8 inches
• ISBN-10 1491271094
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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 1st edition (August 4, 2013)
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• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 4.8 ounces
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