"If you're circumnavigating Africa you can always stop along the way. But you can't when you're going to America -- it's a massive stretch of sea and that's the difference."

Setting off from Tunisia, the modern-day Phoenician vessel is expected to take two to three months to reach America -- granted Beale can raise £100,000 ($156,000) for the expedition.

New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art has already invited him to display the boat as part of their upcoming exhibition on the Phoenicians, opening in September 2014.

"The conventional wisdom is that Christopher Columbus discovered America. But anyone who looks a little closer will see the Vikings were there around 900AD. They've found Viking settlements in Newfoundland, it's undisputed," Beale said.

"So Columbus was definitely second -- at best. I put forward the theory that the Phoenicians could have been first and I hope to prove that was the case."