Sara Wheeler

Gales and Gaels — sailing solo from Cornwall to the Summer Isles

While island-hopping along Ireland’s wild coast, Philip Marsden explores ancient traditions relating to pilgrims, penitents and saints

issue 28 September 2019

This is the story of a solo voyage in a 31ft- wooden sailing boat called Tsambika.
Philip Marsden pilots his sloop along the west coast of Ireland, then the west coast of Scotland. The Summer Isles lie at his journey’s end, but in fact he is unable to land, owing to unfriendly headwinds — hence those islands ‘must remain in the imagination of the book’s subtitle’.

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