( dpa ) - A group of adventurers on Sunday ceremonially named a whaleboat which they plan to row 190 kilometres along the Antarctic coast this year to recreate the ordeal of Norwegian mariner Carl Anton Larsen and five seaman.
A Polish boat builder, Janusz Kowal, has made a replica of the 9-metre wooden boat and will be among the five men and one woman on the trip. At a gathering in Potsdam near the German capital Berlin, the boat was named the Fuegia.
Larsen was skipper of the ship Antarctic, which was chartered to pick up a Swedish exhibition led by Otto Nordenskjold from Snow Hill Island on the Weddell Sea in February 1903, the modern adventurers' leader, Henryk Wolski, said.
But Larsen's vessel was crushed by ice and sank. The 20 occupants spent two weeks rowing to a tiny island there they built a stone hut and stayed there through the southern winter. In October 1903, six of them rowed in nine days to Snow Hill Island, 100 nautical miles away.
All of the expedition and the Antarctic crew were rescued.
The enthusiasts, who are being sponsored by the Polish magazine Zagle, plan to row the route in their open boat this November.