Ocean rowing

Ocean rowing is the sport of rowing across oceans. Some ocean rowing boats can hold as many as fourteen rowers; however, the most common ocean rowboats are designed for singles, doubles, and fours. The history of ocean rowing is divided into two eras by the Ocean Rowing Society International, the official adjudicator of ocean rowing records for Guinness World Records. The first fourteen ocean rows, up to and including 1981, are considered historic ocean rows as they were completed with very limited, if any, modern technology. All subsequent rows are described as modern-day rows. The first ocean to be deliberately rowed across was the Atlantic by Frank Samuelsen and George Harbo, two Norwegian-born Americans, in June 1896. The pair left Battery Park, Manhattan, on 6 June 1896, arriving on the Isles of Scilly, 55 days and 13 hours later, having covered 3,250 nautical miles (3,740 mi; 6,020 km). They continued to row to Le Havre, France. No such crossing would be officially attempted again for 70 years' time, and, in a testament to the sport's inherent danger, the first to try to repeat the feat, again a two-man crew rowing the Atlantic from west to east, were lost at sea in 1966. However, that same year, John Ridgway and Chay Blyth successfully rowed across the Atlantic in 92 days.