Miles Clark

[1][2] Born Magherafelt, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland on 3 November 1960, he was the son of Wallace Clark and the godson of Miles Smeeton, themselves both yachtsmen and authors.

As a soldier in 1984, he was one of the oarsmen who rowed Tim Severin's replica Greek galley through the Black Sea to Georgia in the U.S.S.R.[3] He left the army to become a full-time freelance travel writer and photographer in his mid-20s.

With grudging permission from the KGB and sponsorship from National Geographic[4] he departed from Northern Ireland in the summer of 1992 sailing the family's 60-year-old wooden yacht Wild Goose into the Arctic Circle.

[3] Finn became an illustrator and his work included a watercolour of Wild Goose sailing away, for the title cover for The Call of the Running Tide by his grandfather Wallace Clark.

[7][8] Miles Clark died unexpectedly a few months after his return home from his Russia expedition, in Salisbury on 17 April 1993 aged 32, from the possible effects of toxins absorbed during the trip.