Sailing legends offer life lessons
WORDS of an old air have been flitting around my head for weeks now. “The sea, oh the sea, is grá geal mo chroí.” This anthem to the briny foam speaks much to the spirit of our island nation, and the maritime link to the danger and daring of life before the mast.
In the tumult of Christmas week, it almost passed unnoticed that one of Ireland’s greatest seafarers, Tim Severin, had trimmed the sails for his final voyage upon uncharted waters. An adventurer like they don’t make any more, he cut his youthful teeth following Marco Polo’s overland route on a motorbike, and saddling up with Mongol horsemen in the footsteps of Genghis Khan. These were but the appetisers of the nautical feast that would define his life. Using an 8th century text, Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis, as his template, Severin proved the myth that an Irish monk might well have discovered North America a thousand years before Columbus. His account of The Brendan Voyage became required reading for armchair travellers everywhere. “One starts from a grand level of ignorance and accepts that we don’t know everything that we’re doing, but we learn,” was his description of the epic endeavour – an apt mantra worthy of the life path we all wander.
Chatting late into the evening at the Royal Cork Yacht Club a decade ago, I wondered if he knew Psalm 107 by heart: “They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; These see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep.” Having sailed with 200 crews, he never lost a single man – a telling statistic on the Severin brand of leadership.
“People rise to the occasion, they more than cope; they learn, they contribute,” ran his philosophy. “Everybody can do what’s necessary regardless of whether you come from a farm or an insurance office.” With the club empty save for ourselves and a bottle down to its final dram, I pondered if the world had now become too small for great adventures, with no uncharted waters left to roam.
“Today’s youth live in uncertain times and I think it will blood their appetite for risk,” he smiled. “The world may be smaller, but there will always be adventures waiting and new discoveries to be found.”
As luck would have it, a few weeks after my last meeting with Tim, work took me to Galway and a chance meeting with Commander Bill King – the oldest surviving submarine commander from World War II. Praise for his dozen medals guarding the Arctic convoys at the helm of his three commands – Snapper, Trusty and Telemachus – was waved away with the trademark modesty typical of the greatest generation. “I wasn’t terribly brave or clever at all, we were losing so many subs, I think they gave these gongs out just to boost morale,” he said. Three out of four Allied submarines ended up on the ocean floor at the height of the conflict.
After the war he circumnavigated the world in Galway Blazer II – at 58, the oldest individual to accomplish the feat. “Seeking inspiration I read the New Testament, the Koran, the Vedas and the Tanach. But sad to say, I was still none the wiser on the mysteries of life.”
His sailor’s salty sense of humour came in useful during the 1970s when the North’s violence threatened even into his remote corner of Galway. “Winston Churchill was my wife’s cousin; Eamon de Valera was her godfather; and Michael Collins was a friend of the family. So which ever crowd came to murder me I could rightfully say: Stop – I’m on your side!” His echoing laughter in the great hall of Oranmore Castle was my final sighting of the last Commander – a vision of bravery I’m grateful to retain.