be and last 1,000 days and nights -- nonstop, with no port calls for supplies or a walk on solid ground. Reid Stowe, 55, and his 23-year-old girlfriend, Soanya Ahmad set sail Saturday afternoon aboard his 70-foot (21-meter), two-masted schooner, named the Schooner Anne, from a Hudson River marina in North Hoboken.
"This will be my first time sailing ever -- except for up and down the Hudson River," said Ahmad, the New York-raised daughter of immigrants from Guyana.
"I haven't gotten seasick -- so far," she said with a grin.
She may be tested when the yacht rounds South America's Cape Horn on the way from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, an area infamous for waves as high as 100 feet (30 meters), as well as icebergs.
If they succeed, they say their time away from land will surpass the 657 days spent at sea by Australian Jon Sanders, who circumnavigated the globe three times from 1986 to 1988.
Stowe planned a course that initially will take them into the north Atlantic to take advantage of wind and currents, then head south of the Equator. Past the Equator, before passing Cape Horn, he mapped out a course that would loop around the south Atlantic, in the outline of a heart.
"This is a voyage that takes heart," he said.
Provisions were packed into every nook and cranny of the schooner's hull, everything from rice and beans to tomato sauce, pasta, pesto, olives, chocolate, spices and about 200 pounds (90 kilograms) of parmesan cheese. Sprouts were already growing in boxes for salads.
The rest of their food will be caught fresh from the sea -- automatically. Two contraptions at the stern will troll for fish, and when one is caught the line is rigged to alert them by tapping a piece of wood.
Rainwater will be collected in tarps stretched over the deck, and a desalinator will turn sea water into drinking water.
Crammed in alongside the food was a ton of coal and 100 boxes of firewood for the antique French iron stove that keep them warm, plus diesel oil for a motor.
Solar panels will generate enough electricity for the satellite communication and navigation system and for lights. Along with sending and receiving e-mail via satellite, they expect to post photographs, videos and blogs on their Web site.
They also have a small library of books on yoga, meditation and spirituality, as well as art and history, plus the collected works of Joseph Conrad and every book written by Herman Melville, including "Moby Dick."
Along with a well-stocked medical kit, they both learned how to clean and stitch cuts and to set broken bones.
The cost of the journey is covered by corporate and individual donations, plus donations of food, the sails and marine ropes.
