Four Seattle men are now in training for the 3,100 nautical mile Shepard Ocean Fours Rowing Race across the North Atlantic Ocean in June. The race starts in New York on June 10. The finish line is at the maritime port of Falmouth, England, 300 miles west of London. The race is expected to take 40 to 70 days.

The route will they take, follows the same course Norwegian immigrants George Harbo and Frank Samuelson used to cross the Atlantic in 1896.

OAR Northwest (Ocean Adventure Team) includes Jordan Hanssen, Greg Spooner, Brad Vickers and Dylan LeValley. The four men will be the only Americans to ever enter the Shepard Ocean Fours Rowing Race. The other teams are from France, the United Kingdom and New Zealand.

Hanssen, 23 years old, is the team captain of OAR Northwest. He came up with the idea to put together a team after seeing the race advertised on a poster.

"It's such an immense challenge and adventure. We were all raised to chase exciting goals and adventure since we were young," said Spooner, who has put off plans to go to medical school for the project.

Spooner, 26 years old, competes in regional and national rowing competitions.

"This race is one of the greatest tests of human spirit. More people have stood on the summit of Mt. Everest than have attempted to row across the ocean," said Spooner.

Vickers, 23 years old, graduated from the University of Puget Sound (UPS), where he was a member of four consecutive Northwest Conference Championship rowing teams.

"Our goal is to establish the United States as one of the most competitive ocean rowing countries in the world. Being the first crew from the U.S. to successfully row across the North Atlantic is a huge step in that direction," said Vickers.

The four men have been going through survival training at the Seattle Maritime Academy (SMA) in Ballard.

"The training was fantastic. It would have been difficult to abandon ship without it," said Spooner.

Recently, they did an emergency exercise in survival suits and inflatable life rafts with the guidance of SMA instructors.

The exercise is critical to their training. A person going into the water of the North Atlantic Ocean without a survival suit suffers from hypothermia in 3-5 minutes as the body temperatures lower to life threatening levels.

"The body chills down and turns blue. Everything numbs up," said Bill Zazzo, director of the SMA.

Zazzo says water temperatures in the North Atlantic can range from the high 30's to the low 40's in degrees, depending on the wind chill.

"With a survival suit, you can survive for days," said Zazzo.

During their SMA training, all four OAR Northwest members climbed into a row boat, overturned it and entered the Ship Canal water (average 52 degrees) with survival suits on to practice their life saving skills using instructor Patrick Boyle as a victim.

They surrounded Boyle as SMA students sprayed water at them to simulate high winds and waves. Spooner retrieved an inflatable life raft, deployed it and helped the other three men pull themselves and Boyle into it.

During the race, the team will use GPS charting software to keep them on course. They will also carry a sextant to do celestial navigation as a back up in case something goes wrong with the GPS.

The boat will be 29-feet in length with a six-foot beam. The weight of the boat with the crew and supplies will be 3,500 pounds.

Vickers said the boat is designed to be light in weight, allowing it to bob in the water like a cork and avoid being hit hard by waves. It is designed to be able to row in 30-foot high seas.

Each crew member will be strapped to the boat while rowing for safety. The hatches will be watertight.

The four men will alternate rowing in pairs, 24 hours a day, except when weather conditions worsen.

Every ten days, there will be storms strong enough for them to stop rowing. In that case, they'll toss out an anchor and stay inside the hatch.

Their equipment will include a GPS and satellite telephone. They will be able to access the Internet to provide updates on their progress.

Once the race begins, the first week to ten-days will test the rowers the most as they go through sleep deprivation, seasickness and acclimate to the rough conditions in the Atlantic Ocean.

Their pre-race training includes two ten-day rowing trips to Canada to test their equipment, navigation techniques and their physical endurance.

During the recent Seattle Boat Show, all four men took turns at a rowing machine and set a world record, keeping it spinning for seven days, seven hours. They rowed the equivalent of 1,340 miles.

Spooner says there is no first prize for the winner of the race; expect maybe a first place coffee mug.

Being the first Americans to compete in the race and representing the United States and the Pacific Northwest is a prize in itself said Spooner.

The projected cost of the race is $120,000 and OAR Northwest is two-thirds towards meeting that goal.

The Seattle Yacht Club, Elliott Bay Marina, Lake Washington Rowing Club and clothing manufacturer Kokotat have joined as sponsors.

Individuals can also add their names to the boat for $100.

Once the Shepard Ocean Fours Rowing Race begins on June 10, the public can keep track of OAR NORTHWEST's progress during the race by logging onto the web site, www.oarnorthwest.com.