Short answers, pulled from the story.
Tim Severin, born Giles Timothy Watkins on the 25th of September 1940 in Jorhat, Assam, India, was a British explorer, historian, and writer known for retracing the legendary voyages of historical and mythological figures. He died on the 18th of December 2020, aged 80, at his home in Timoleague, West Cork, Ireland.
The Brendan Voyage of 1976-1977 is Severin's best-known expedition. He sailed a replica sixth-century Irish currach made from ox hides and leather thong from the Dingle Peninsula, County Kerry, to Peckford Island, Newfoundland, covering 4,500 miles in over thirteen months. The book about the voyage became an international best-seller translated into sixteen languages.
Severin was awarded the Founder's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society in 1986 and the Livingstone Medal of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. He also won the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award for The Sindbad Voyage and received honorary doctorates from Trinity College Dublin and University College Cork, as well as the Gold Medal of the Maritime Institute of Ireland.
The Sohar was an 87-foot replica of a ninth-century Arab dhow constructed in Sur, Oman in 1980 under the sponsorship of Sultan Qaboos bin Said al Said. Omani shipwrights sewn the planks together with nearly 400 miles of hand-rolled coconut-husk rope rather than nails, and the build took seven months.
Severin attempted to cross the Pacific in 1993 on a 60-foot bamboo raft named Hsu Fu, built at Sam Son, Vietnam, to test the ancient Chinese legend of the navigator Hsu Fu. After travelling 5,500 miles in 105 days, the rattan cording began rotting and the crew had to abandon the raft about 1,000 miles short of their destination.
Severin wrote two main fiction series. The Viking Series, which began in 2005, follows a young Viking adventurer. The Adventures of Hector Lynch, which began in 2007, is set in the late seventeenth century and centres on a seventeen-year-old Corsair; the series ran to five books with Freebooter appearing in 2017.