This is a list of notable successful swims across the English Channel,[1] a straight-line distance of at least 18.2 nautical miles (20.9 mi; 33.7 km).[2]
Aerial view of the Strait of DoverTed Heaton (in water) being fed by assistants during his 1910 swimMonument in Dover to Channel swimmers
The first attempt to cross the channel with no artificial aid was made by the 23 year old J. B. Johnson on 30 August 1872.[3] Johnson hired a brass band in Dover to hype up his attempt, and entertained the crowd for three hours at Dover before diving in and starting his swim.[4]
Johnson swam for 45 minutes, before having a quick break to swig some brandy. He then continued until he had swum for 1 hour, before having another break to drink even more brandy. After 1 hour and 20 minutes, Johnson boarded the boat because the cold water was too much for him to handle.[5] Despite this, the boat continued on to Calais, where Johnson jumped off the boat and swam to shore. The crowd waiting for him believed Johnson had swum the channel, and Johnson briefly entertained this idea. However, later he said that he never intended to swim the whole channel, and that it was all a stunt for publicity.[5]
First successful crossing
The first successful attempt was by Paul Boyton, wearing a rubber survival suit designed for passengers of sinking ships. On 28 May 1875, on his second attempt, he entered the water at Cap Gris-Nez at 03:00, accompanied by the Prince Ernest and captained by Edward Dane.[6] By 06:00, Boyton was 5 miles from the French coast, and at 11:45, he was halfway.[7] At 18:30, Boyton was 4 miles from Dover, and by 02:30, he had landed at Fan Bay, near the Port of Dover.[8] He completed the swim in around 231⁄2 hours.[9] The press began to portray him as a rival of endurance swimmer Matthew Webb.
First unaided successful crossing by Matthew Webb
Matthew Webb made the crossing without the aid of artificial buoyancy. His first attempt ended in failure, but on 25 August 1875, he started from Admiralty Pier in Dover and made the crossing in 21 hours and 45 minutes, despite challenging tides (which delayed him for 5 hours) and a jellyfish sting.[10]
Second successful crossing by Thomas Burgess
80 failed attempts were made by a variety of people before Thomas William Burgess, on 6 September 1911, became the second person to make the crossing. He crossed from Dover to Cap Gris Nez in 22 hours and 35 minutes at his 16th bid. Burgess ate a hearty meal of ham and eggs before starting his swim. He had only trained for 18 hours beforehand, and his longest practice swim was only 10 kilometres (6 mi).[11]
Other early crossings
Henry Sullivan was successful at his seventh attempt, becoming the third person, and the first American, to make the crossing. He entered the water in Dover at 4:20 on Sunday afternoon, 5 August 1923. Choppy waters and capricious tides forced him to swim an estimated 90 kilometres (56 mi). He reached shore at Calais at 8:05 pm on 6 August, finishing in 27 hours and 45 minutes.[12] Two other swimmers completed the swim that same summer. Enrique Tirabocchi, from Argentina, completed the swim on 13 August, finishing in a record time of 16 hours and 33 minutes and the first person to swim the route starting from France.[13] American Charles Toth of Boston completed the swim on 9 September 1923, in 16 hours and 40 minutes, two days after the expiration of a £1,000 prize offered by the Daily Sketch for anyone who completed the swim, a prize that both Sullivan and Tirabocchi received from a representative of the Daily Sketch waiting on the shore with a cheque in hand.[14][15]
First crossings by women
American Gertrude Ederle's successful cross-channel swim began at Gris Nez in France at 07:05 am on 6 August 1926. Her trainer was Burgess.[16] She came ashore at Kingsdown, Kent, England, in a total time of 14 hours and 39 minutes, making her the first woman to complete the crossing and setting the record for the fastest time, breaking the previous mark set by Tirabocchi by almost two hours. A reporter from The New York Times, who had accompanied Ederle's support team on a tugboat, recounted that Ederle was confronted by a British immigration official, who recorded the biographical details of Ederle and the individuals on board the ship, none of whom had been carrying their passports. Ederle was finally allowed to come ashore, after promising that she would report to the authorities the following morning.[17]
L. Walter Lissberger financed the $3,000 in expenses that Amelia Gade Corson and her husband incurred in preparing for the Channel swim. Lissberger made a wager with Lloyd's of London betting that she would succeed in crossing the Channel, and received a payout of $100,000 at odds of 20–1 when she completed her swim.[18] She was one of three swimmers who were trying to make the swim across the Channel at the same time starting at 11:32 at night on 28 August 1926, leaving from Cape Gris Nez. The two men with her failed, Egyptian swimmer Ishak Helmy dropping out after three hours and an English swimmer failing one mile (1.6 km) from Dover's Shakespeare Cliffs.[19] With her husband rowing alongside in a dory and providing her with hot chocolate, sugar lumps and crackers, she completed the swim in a time of 15 hours and 29 minutes, one hour longer than the record set by Gertrude Ederle three weeks earlier.[20]
Jackie Cobell had intended to make the crossing by a more direct route in July 2010, but inadvertently set the record for the slowest solo swim, when strong currents forced her to swim a total of 105 kilometres (65 mi) in 28 hours and 44 minutes.[21]
Ninth and first man to swim the English Channel in both directions. He swam from France to England in August 1927 and from England to France on 18 August 1934.[1][27]
First Dutch woman to swim the English Channel.[54][55]
England to France
South Africa
Peter Bales
1969
13:38
Second person, and first man, from South Africa to swim the English Channel. He was the third person from Southern Africa to complete the swim.[38][56]
First Macedonian woman to swim the English Channel.[57]
France to England
United Kingdom
Ray Cossum
1970
13:41
First Irishman to swim the English Channel. (Cossum was born in Kent and moved to Derry, Northern Ireland as a teenager.) He worked as a saturation diver and claimed to be the only person to have crossed the Channel by train, boat, submarine, plane and swimming, and to have worked at its bottom.[58][59]
First woman and youngest swimmer (at the time) to swim the channel both ways non-stop, breaking Jon Erikson's record of 30 hours and setting a new world record. Her one way crossing in 1975 set the record of 9 hours and 46 minutes (a record that stood until 1988).[75] She holds the record for the most two-way crossings with a total of five.[76]
↑"Toth, Charles". Channel Swimming Dover. Retrieved 12 June 2024.
↑Gallico, Paul (19 January 1964). "First Queen of Channel Swimmers". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 21 October 2012. Retrieved 12 August 2009. The coach who joined the party abroad was none other than that Thomas Burgess who, 15 years before, had been the second to make the Channel crossing
↑She did it in 14 hours 39 minutes, breaking the men's record of the time by two hours. However, this swim attracted some controversy. On 16 August, The Westminster Gazette reported locals as saying that "Miss Ederle swam under the lea of one of the accompanying tugs" while another boat "navigated in such a manner as to keep the heavy seas and tides off her" and that "Miss Ederle was drawn along by the suction of the tug so that she was able to swim at about twice the speed she would have been able to swim under ordinary conditions." The Dover Express and East Kent News commented that "So far little information has been given of the detail of Miss Ederle's swim. The most extraordinary thing about it being that she made no westward drift with the ebb tide, which on the day in question ran westward for nearly seven hours."
↑"People of Note". Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 10 August 2010. Edward Temme, a London insurance clerk, was the first man to swim across the Channel both ways, from France to England in August 1927 and from England to France on 18 August 1934.