The Sindbad Voyage

"I chose it because it’s got boys’ stuff in it and I’m quite into boys’ stuff. It’s about how you put things together, how you build things. It’s about this journey from Muscat [in Oman] to Guangzhou or Canton in China. A substantial part of the book is about his research of how you make a sewn boat or ship, which is what his boat was. Not that the boat was made of cloth, but the planks, rather than being nailed together, have holes put in them and big cross stitches are used to pull them together. There are various reasons why people say these sewn boats were used in the Indian Ocean for thousands of years. Perhaps they withstand collisions against reefs better or perhaps people didn’t have access to nails. But whatever the reason, people used this technique of sewing boats which had been completely forgotten in Oman, but is still used in Kerala in southwest India. And so Severin goes off to India and researches how you actually make these boats, picks up a load of guys and brings them back to Muscat to make this boat using methods from a thousand years ago. I’m into how to make things and how to restore things and I found the story of how they researched and made the boat absolutely fascinating. On top of that you have the voyage and all the adventures and derring-do – the mast breaks, they sail through storms and so on. It’s really like reading the stories of Sinbad or the stories of Al-Ramhurmuzi, an Arabian sea captain from the 10th century. It’s fascinating from the point of view of the building and the journey and it’s like travelling back in time and that’s why I love it. The Sohar, the name of Severin’s boat, had ended up on a roundabout in Muscat. The thing is, it’s so tiny. It’s absolutely miniscule and gives you this enormous regard for the Arabs, the Persians and the Muslims of a thousand years ago who did these amazing voyages."