Showing my age, I immediately recall the '60s fantasy movie "The Magic Christian," in which the eponymous ocean liner was powered by an engine room full of naked chained galley slavegirls, with Raquel Welch as the slave-driver:
http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1666881536/tt0064622

Obviously, rowing machines such as any catalog shop sells could be the basis for this - I had one as part of my dungeon equipment, I loved driving subs to exhaustion on it. If you wanted to re-create the experience of pulling a galley oar more authentically, it shouldn't be hard to change it to a single lever. The remote control discipline is more of a challenge, and if anyone can think up a simple way to make a whipping machine controlled through an online link, it will be a boon to the whole online BDSM community. I'll give it some serious thought.