70-Year-Old Rower Sets Off on Record-Breaking Quest

Norwegian doctor Stein Hoff is no stranger to challenges. The avid rower crossed the Atlantic with a partner in 1997, and in 2002 he rowed solo and unsupported from Lisbon, Portugal, to the coast of the South American country of Guyana. But now the 70-year-old who says people "spend too much time at their desk and wasting their lives watching Game of Thrones" is hoping to become the oldest person to row across the Atlantic, reports the Telegraph. Hoff will be unsupported and unfollowed (a satellite phone can summon help if needed).

His wife Diana, who set the record for the oldest woman to cross the Atlantic when she was 55 in 2000, has prepared all his food—including homemade energy bars, cereal, milk powder, and fruitcakes—for a voyage expected to take 90 days and cover as many as 3,000 nautical miles. Hoff's boat, Fox II, is so-dubbed in honor of the 1896 journey that sent two Americans of Norwegian descent on the first human crossing of the Atlantic by oar. Their 18-foot boat was named Fox, reports the New York Post, and their 55-day record stood for 114 years until a four-man crew beat it. Hoff will copy their route, though his Fox II boasts GPS, water filtration, and solar panels. "I realize it could be risky," he says, but he set off Sunday from Manhattan, bound for England's Isles of Scilly, with his sights set high. (This rower's quest? The Pacific.)