I don't know where Tenpenny's accent is from, but its certainly not from any of these islands.
Obviously there are boats still floating and such, but to cross entire oceans you need boats a tad more stable than the Dutchess Gambit, and in most cases they tend to require quite a lot of work to assemble even in a fully functional factory. What i mean is, it is certainly not impossible, just rather improbable.
To cross the Atlantic, you need little more than a rowing boat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Rowing_Race
If the vikings could do it in longships, there were probably thousands of Europeans fleeing to the US over the course of 200 years