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I am almost finished with The Brendan Voyage by Tim Severin. The author describes his attempt to recreate the sixth century legendary voyage by Saint Brendan from Ireland to North America using a leather boat built following traditional techniques.
I bought this after watching a History Channel documentary on many other people who may have preceded Christopher Columbus in reaching the Americas. Some of them have convincing evidence, such as the Vikings. Some have intriguing possibilities but less substantial evidence, such as Polynesian sailors and the subject of this book, St. Brendan.
I expected to read about the difficulties of sailing a small boat vast distances in the North Atlantic. What I didn't expect were the many heartwarming anecdotes of how total strangers and sometimes entire villages would turn out to provide support for the author's seemingly quixotic project. There's also much food for thought about how well handcrafted traditional materials hold up when compared to modern synthetics. I'm very glad I took a chance on this book.
Now to find something else to read...
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