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Tim Severin
Timothy Severin (25 September 1940 – 18 December 2020) was a British explorer, historian, and writer. Severin was noted for his work in retracing the legendary journeys of historical figures. Severin was awarded both the Founder's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society and the Livingstone Medal of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. He received the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award for his 1982 book The Sindbad Voyage.
He was born Giles Timothy Watkins in 1940 to Maurice and Inge Watkins in Jorhat, Assam, India, where his father managed a tea plantation. Educated in England from age 7, he attended Tonbridge School and studied geography and history at Keble College, Oxford. He adopted the name Severin to honour his maternal grandmother, who cared for him in his youth.
Severin married twice. His first wife was Dorothy Sherman, a specialist in medieval Spanish literature; that marriage ended in divorce. He later married Dee Pieters.
Severin died on 18 December 2020, aged 80, at home in Timoleague, West Cork, Ireland. He is survived by his daughter from his first marriage, Ida Ashworth, and two grandsons.
While he was an undergraduate at Oxford University, Severin, Stanley Johnson and Michael de Larrabeiti retraced Marco Polo's thirteenth-century journey through Asia on motorcycles, using Polo's The Description of the World as a guide. They travelled from Oxford via Switzerland to Venice, through Turkey, Persia and Afghanistan, surviving sandstorms, floods, motorcycle accidents, and time spent in jail. Severin and his guides rode camels through the Deh Bakri pass to identify the Persian "apples of Paradise" and the hidden hot springs described by Polo. They were unable to complete the voyage due to visa problems at the border of China and returned to England by sea from Bombay (Tracking Marco Polo, 1987).
From conquistadors to nineteenth-century gentlemen explorers, Severin follows the routes and tells the stories of the adventurers who have travelled along the US river the Mississippi for hundreds of years, and does so while navigating the length of the river by canoe and launch.
It is theorized by some scholars that the Latin texts of Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis (The Voyage of St Brendan the Abbot) dating back to at least 800 AD tell the story of Brendan's (c. 489–583) seven-year voyage across the Atlantic Ocean to a new land and his return. Convinced that the legend was based on historical truth, in 1976 Severin built a replica of Brendan's currach. Handcrafted using traditional tools, the 36-foot (11 m), two-masted boat was built of Irish ash and oak, hand-lashed together with nearly two miles (3 km) of leather thong, wrapped with 49 traditionally tanned ox hides, and sealed with wool grease.
On May 17, 1976, Severin and his crew (George Maloney, Arthur Magan, Tróndur Patursson) sailed from Dingle Peninsula, County Kerry on the Brendan, and, over more than 13 months, travelled 4,500 miles (7,200 km), arriving at Canada on June 26, 1977, landing on Peckford Island, Newfoundland, before being towed to Musgrave Harbour by the Canadian Coast Guard. Severin told reporters, "We've proved that a leather boat can cross the North Atlantic by a route that few modern yachtsmen would attempt.". Along the way, they had stopped at the Hebrides, the Faroe Islands and Iceland (where they spent the winter until departing again on May 11) en route. He considered that his recreation of the voyage helped to identify the basis for many of the legendary elements of the story: the "Island of Sheep", the "Paradise of Birds", "Crystal Towers", "mountains that hurled rocks at voyagers", and the "Promised Land". Severin's account of the expedition, The Brendan Voyage, became an international best-seller, translated into 16 languages.
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Tim Severin
Timothy Severin (25 September 1940 – 18 December 2020) was a British explorer, historian, and writer. Severin was noted for his work in retracing the legendary journeys of historical figures. Severin was awarded both the Founder's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society and the Livingstone Medal of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. He received the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award for his 1982 book The Sindbad Voyage.
He was born Giles Timothy Watkins in 1940 to Maurice and Inge Watkins in Jorhat, Assam, India, where his father managed a tea plantation. Educated in England from age 7, he attended Tonbridge School and studied geography and history at Keble College, Oxford. He adopted the name Severin to honour his maternal grandmother, who cared for him in his youth.
Severin married twice. His first wife was Dorothy Sherman, a specialist in medieval Spanish literature; that marriage ended in divorce. He later married Dee Pieters.
Severin died on 18 December 2020, aged 80, at home in Timoleague, West Cork, Ireland. He is survived by his daughter from his first marriage, Ida Ashworth, and two grandsons.
While he was an undergraduate at Oxford University, Severin, Stanley Johnson and Michael de Larrabeiti retraced Marco Polo's thirteenth-century journey through Asia on motorcycles, using Polo's The Description of the World as a guide. They travelled from Oxford via Switzerland to Venice, through Turkey, Persia and Afghanistan, surviving sandstorms, floods, motorcycle accidents, and time spent in jail. Severin and his guides rode camels through the Deh Bakri pass to identify the Persian "apples of Paradise" and the hidden hot springs described by Polo. They were unable to complete the voyage due to visa problems at the border of China and returned to England by sea from Bombay (Tracking Marco Polo, 1987).
From conquistadors to nineteenth-century gentlemen explorers, Severin follows the routes and tells the stories of the adventurers who have travelled along the US river the Mississippi for hundreds of years, and does so while navigating the length of the river by canoe and launch.
It is theorized by some scholars that the Latin texts of Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis (The Voyage of St Brendan the Abbot) dating back to at least 800 AD tell the story of Brendan's (c. 489–583) seven-year voyage across the Atlantic Ocean to a new land and his return. Convinced that the legend was based on historical truth, in 1976 Severin built a replica of Brendan's currach. Handcrafted using traditional tools, the 36-foot (11 m), two-masted boat was built of Irish ash and oak, hand-lashed together with nearly two miles (3 km) of leather thong, wrapped with 49 traditionally tanned ox hides, and sealed with wool grease.
On May 17, 1976, Severin and his crew (George Maloney, Arthur Magan, Tróndur Patursson) sailed from Dingle Peninsula, County Kerry on the Brendan, and, over more than 13 months, travelled 4,500 miles (7,200 km), arriving at Canada on June 26, 1977, landing on Peckford Island, Newfoundland, before being towed to Musgrave Harbour by the Canadian Coast Guard. Severin told reporters, "We've proved that a leather boat can cross the North Atlantic by a route that few modern yachtsmen would attempt.". Along the way, they had stopped at the Hebrides, the Faroe Islands and Iceland (where they spent the winter until departing again on May 11) en route. He considered that his recreation of the voyage helped to identify the basis for many of the legendary elements of the story: the "Island of Sheep", the "Paradise of Birds", "Crystal Towers", "mountains that hurled rocks at voyagers", and the "Promised Land". Severin's account of the expedition, The Brendan Voyage, became an international best-seller, translated into 16 languages.