Hoboken, N.J. ? He’s a veteran of long-distance sailing voyages in all kinds of weather. She’s never sailed outside the Hudson River.

Reid Stowe, left, and Soanya Ahmad stand aboard their 70 foot gaff-rigged Schooner Anne on Friday in Hoboken, N.J. On Saturday, 55-year-old Stowe and his 23-year-old girlfriend, Ahmad, began a sea voyage to last 1,000 continuous days and nights.

But together, Reid Stowe and his girlfriend, Soanya Ahmad, are embarking on a voyage that they intend to take them three times around the globe and last 1,000 days and nights – nonstop, with no port calls for supplies or a walk on solid ground.

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. 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 the schooner’s hull, from rice and beans to tomato sauce, pasta, olives, chocolate, spices and about 200 pounds 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 an antique French iron stove, 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.

The cost of the journey is covered by corporate and individual donations.

“It’s inside everyone to go into the unknown,” Stowe said, “to sail by the sun and the winds of fate.”