In 1976-77, Tim Severin crossed the Atlantic Ocean in a leather boat in order to prove that the Irish monk St Brendan could have discovered the American continent more than a thousand years ago. His book The Brendan Voyage was an international bestseller, published in sixteen languages. Now he has completed an epic new voyage more exotic and extraordinary even than the first a recreation of one of the most famous travel stories of all time: the seven voyages of Sindbad the Sailor from The Thousand and One Nights.
In 1980, in the Sultanate of Oman on the Arabian Sea, a replica was built of an Arab sailing ship of a kind that had not been seen for centuries—a vessel like those which navigated a quarter of the way round the globe in search of trade more than a thousand years ago. As in Tim Severin's previous exploit, the journey was based on meticulous research. Sohar (named at the wish of the Sultan after the town said to have been Sindbad's birth place) was built from trees personally chosen by the author from the forests of the Malabar coast in India. Not a single nail was used in the construction the ship was tied together with some four hundred miles of coconut rope. With a crew of twenty, including eight Omani sailors, Sohar's 6,000 mile journey took her across the Arabian Sea to India, then to Sri Lanka and across the Indian Ocean to Sumatra and the Malacca Straits, and finally through the China Seas to Canton. En route the crew of Sohar were obliged to swim among inquisitive sharks while repairing the rudder, catch rainwater to drink while becalmed in the doldrums, and endure the battering of violent seas off the coast of Vietnam. They successfully tested the effectiveness of early Arab navigation methods, and finally arrived to a tumultuous welcome in China.
The story of this astonishing 7¹½-month voyage is told in The Sindbad Voyage—one of the most remarkable sailing stories of modern times and one that will become a classic in the literature of exploration. No one who has read Tim Severin's enthralling book will fail to agree with him that, although the voyages of Sindbad were full of myth and legend, they were based on the exploits of the Arab sea-faring merchants who plied the ancient spice route to the East.
—from the dust jacket
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