His cruises became more adventurous with experience, and his 1954 voyage round Ireland became the basis for his best-known book, Sailing Round Ireland, first published in 1976. In 1963, he was a leading light in the recreation of St Columba's voyage from Derry to Iona in a currach. Nearly thirty years later he was heavily involved in another major reconstruction journey, the Lord of the Isles Voyage, from Ireland to Scotland in Aileach, a wooden galley of the kind used in those waters in medieval times.
