Even as we speak, rushing towards us across the Atlantic Ocean are two sets of awesome oarsmen, straining every muscle to beat a record set in 1896.

The Dutch foursome are four days in front of the English crew, which includes two rowers from Ingleby Barwick near Stockton, but that is only because they set off four days earlier.

Both the Dutch in Vopak Victory and the English in Naturally Best are striving to row west to east across the Atlantic quicker than the 55 days it took George Harbo and Frank Samuelsen in 1896.

Today's crews have the latest technology, e-mails, global positioning satellites and watertight sleeping compartments. Harbo and Samuelsen powered their way across in an 18ft wooden skiff open to the elements. Twice they capsized and, as they hung in the water attached to their craft by a lifeline, they saw their supplies whoosh past them in the mountainous seas.

No sail, no engine, no rudder, no cover. They set a record that still stands 90 years later. A record that has defeated 33 other attempts and has cost five lives.

And when they set it, nobody noticed.

Harbo and Samuelsen were Norwegians who emigrated to America to live the American dream. But by the early 1890s, the dream was dying. They were clam diggers, feeding New York City's Fulton fish market, with no riches and no prospects. Indeed, during the 1893 recession, Harbo's wife and children returned to their native Norway.

Then a New York tabloid called the Police Gazette offered a $10,000 prize for the first persons to row the wrong way across the Atlantic. This came in the wake of the success of Joshua Slocum who, in 1892, had performed the first solo circumnavigation of the globe and was now lucratively lecturing and exhibiting around the world.

Harbo, 30, and Samuelsen, 25, left Manhattan on June 6, 1896, in a boat named Fox after the editor of the Gazette. They had to avoid whales, icebergs and ships. They had to be restocked from passing clippers when they capsized and lost everything.

They spent 18 hours a day rowing and three each sleeping.

They arrived at the most south-western tip of England on August 1, 55 days later. They telegraphed Richard Fox in New York and then, just for the hell of it, rowed on to Le Havre.

To get home, they loaded the Fox onto a steamer and re-sailed the Atlantic. Unfortunately, off Cape Cod, the steamer ran out of coal. The captain ordered all wooden objects on board be burnt. Harbo and Samuelsen threw Fox overboard - and rowed the couple of hundred miles home.

But back in New York, they discovered that you cannot believe all you read in the papers. There was no fame.

There was no lecture tour. There was no prize. All they got was a couple of crummy medals and, before 1897 was out, they were back hunting clams.

Harbo died a broken man in 1908.

Samuelsen returned to Norway and farming. He lived through the Nazi occupation and died in 1946.

Their record was forgotten until 1966 when Chay Blyth and John Ridgway had a pop at it. Their attempt made them national heroes, although they didn't come close: 91 days.

In 1987, British rower Tom McClean equalled the 55 days, but 22 attempts have not even made it to shore in England. The Teesside duo, Nigel Morris and George Rock, themselves floundered at sea in 2002 and needed rescuing.

And still they keep on coming. . .

Published: 04/06/05