List of successful English Channel swimmers explained

This is a list of notable successful swims across the English Channel,^[1] a straight-line distance of at least 18.2nmi.^[2]

First attempts

First unaided attempt by J. B. Johnson

The first attempt to cross the channel with no artificial aid was made by the 23 year old J. B. Johnson on August 30 1872.^[3] Johnson hired a brass band in Dover to hype up his attempt, and entertained the crowd for 3 hours at Dover before diving in and starting his swim.

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. 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.

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. By 06:00, Boyton was 5 miles from the French coast, and at 11:45, he was halfway. At 18:30, Boyton was 4 miles from Dover, and by 02:30, he had laded at Fan Bay, near the Port of Dover. He completed the swim in around 23 hours. 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.^[4]

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 10km (10miles).^[5]

Later crossings

Henry Sullivan was successful at his seventh attempt. 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 . He reached shore at Calais at 8:05 pm on 6 August, finishing in 27 hours and 45 minutes.^[6] 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.^[7] 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.^{[8] [9]}

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.^[10] 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.^[11]

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.^[12] 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.^[13] 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.^[14]

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 in 28 hours and 44 minutes, breaking the record set by Henry Sullivan in 1923, who had been the third person, and the first American, to make the crossing.^[15]

First swims

Direction	Country of origin	width=150	Swimmer	Year	Time	class=unsortable	Notes
England to France			1875	21:45	First ever unaided crossing; swam from England to France on 25 August 1875.
England to France			1911	22:35	Second crossing from England to France on 6 September 1911.
England to France			1923	26:50	Third crossing from England to France; first American to swim across the English Channel.
France to England			1923	16:33	First crossing from France to England. First Italian/Argentinian.
France to England		Charles Toth	1923	16:54	Fifth crossing.[16]
France to England			1926	14:39	First woman to cross in either direction.[17] [18]
France to England		Amelia Gade Corson	1926	15:32	Second woman and first mother.[19]
France to England		Ernst Vierkötter	1926	12:40	Eighth crossing.[20]
France to England			1934	15:34	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.[21]
France to England			1927	15:15	First British woman to cross the English Channel.[22]

National firsts

Direction	Country of origin	Swimmer	Year	Time	Notes
France to England		Margaret ('Peggy') Duncan	1930	16:17	First known person from Southern Africa to swim the English Channel.[23]
France to England		Sally Bauer	1939	15:22	First Swede, and first Scandinavian, to swim the English Channel.[24]
France to England		Winnie Leuszler	1951	13:25	First Canadian to swim the English Channel.[25] [26]
France to England		Jenny James	1951	13:55	First Welsh person to swim the English Channel.[27] [28]
England to France		Damian Pizá Beltran	1953	15:23	First Mexican to swim the English Channel.
France to England		Jacques Amyot	1956	13:02	First Canadian man to swim the English Channel.[29]
France to England		Brojen Das	1958	10:35	First Asian (from Bikrampur, East Pakistan; now Bangladesh) to swim the English Channel, at the English Channel Swimming Competition in 1958. Das became a Bangladeshi citizen after the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971.
England to France		Mihir Sen	1958	14:45	First Indian to swim the English Channel.[30]
France to England		Abilio Couto	1958	12:45	First South American to swim the English Channel.
France to England		Dennis Pearson	1959	15:36	The second known person, and first man, from Southern Africa to swim the Channel. Pearson, from Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia, swam across on Bastille Day, 14 July 1959.[31]
France to England		Arati Saha	1959	14:20	First Indian woman and first Asian woman to swim the English Channel.
France to England		Niko Nestor	1959	12:06	First Macedonian to swim the English Channel.[32]
England to France		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.[33]
France to England		Atina Bojadži	1969	13:20	First Macedonian woman to swim the English Channel.[34]
France to England		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.[35] [36]
France to England			1971	15:26	First Czech (Czechoslovak at that time) to swim the channel.
England to France		Teresa Zarzeczańska	1975	11:10	First Polish person to swim the English Channel.
England to France		Romuald Szopa	1978	12:49	First Polish man to swim the English Channel.
England to France		Mary Yeats	1979	11:19	First Scot to swim the English Channel.
England to France		Nejib Belhedi	1993	16:35	First Tunisian to swim the channel, namesake of a trophy for swimming the channel at the highest tide.[37]
England to France		Bharat Shukla	2000	13:52	First Norwegian to swim the English Channel
England to France		Zhang Jian	2001	11:56	First person from China to swim the English Channel. [38] [39] [40]
England to France		Chris Gibbs	2003	11:30	First person from a Caribbean country to swim the English Channel. Aged 58, and member of The Merrymen Calypso band.[41]
England to France		Abdul Malik Mydin	2003	17:42	First Malaysian swimmer to cross the English Channel.
England to France		Marcos Diaz	2004	09:56	First Dominican swimmer to cross the English Channel.
England to France		Thum Ping Tjin	2005	12:24	First Singaporean to swim the Channel.[42]
England to France		Sigrún Þuríður Geirsdóttir	2015	22:34	First Icelandic woman to swim the English Channel.[43]
England to France		Sara Palacios	2018	12:58	First Ecuadorian citizen and South American Woman to swim the channel.
England to France		Zeina Alsharkas	2019	11:36	First Syrian to swim the English Channel.[44]
England to France		Bárbara Hernández	2019	12:13	First Chilean to swim the English Channel.[45]

Other notable crossings

Direction	Country of origin	Swimmer	Year	Time	Notes
England to France		Florence Chadwick	1953	14:42	First woman to swim the English Channel in both directions (on separate occasions).
England to France		Bill Pickering	1955	14:06	First vegetarian swimmer to cross the English Channel.
England to France to England		Antonio Abertondo	1961	43:10	First person to swim the channel both ways non-stop.
England to France to England		Cindy Nicholas	1977	19:55	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).[46] She holds the record for the most two-way crossings with a total of five.[47]
England to France		Charles Chapman	1981	12:30	First black swimmer to cross the Channel.
England to France to England to France		Jon Erikson	1981	38:27	First person to swim the channel three ways.
England to France		John Maclean	1998	12:55	First paraplegic to swim the Channel.[48]
England to France		Petar Stoychev	2007	6:57	First swimmer to cross the English Channel under 7 hours.
England to France		Philippe Croizon	2010	13:28	First quadruple amputee to swim the English Channel.
England to France to England to France to England		Sarah Thomas	2019	54:10	First person to swim the channel four ways non-stop.[49]
England to France		Gillian Castle	2023	13:53	First person with a stoma to swim the Channel.[50]

Records

Fastest

Record	Country of origin	Swimmer	Time	Date
Men		Andreas Waschburger [51]	06:45	Sep. 2023
Women		Yvetta Hlaváčová	07:25	2006
Men two ways		Philip Rush	16:10	1987
Women two ways		Susie Maroney	17:14	1991
Men three ways		Philip Rush	28:21	1987
Women three ways		Alison Streeter	34:40	1990
Four ways		Sarah Thomas	54:10	2019

Most crossings

Record	Country of origin	Swimmer	Crossings
Women		Chloë McCardel	44
Men		Kevin Murphy	34
Women two ways		Cynthia Nicholas	5
Men two ways		Kevin Murphy	3
		Stuart Johnson
Women three ways		Alison Streeter	1
		Chloe McCardel
		Sarah Thomas
Men three ways		Jon Erikson	1
		Philip Rush
Four ways		Sarah Thomas	1

Oldest swimmer

Record	Country of origin	Swimmer	Age	Date	Reference
Women		Linda Ashmore	71 years	August 21, 2018	[52]
Men		Otto Thaning	73 years	September 6, 2014	[53]

Youngest swimmer

Record	Country of origin	Swimmer	Age	Date	Reference
Women		Samantha Druce	12 years, 118 days	1983	[54]
Men		Thomas Gregory	11 years, 330 days	1988	[55]

Relay

Record	Country of origin	Swimmers	Time	Date
2 swimmers			9:22	2005
3 swimmers			9:39	2011
4 swimmers			8:22	2011

External links

• Full list of successful Channel swims, records, statistics and swimmer information
• Full list of Channel swim results, records and swimmer information
• Newsreel film of Philip Mickman's swim in a BBC Archive tweet

Notes and References

1. Web site: Listing of Successful Swims . 12 August 2009 . Solo swims .
2. Web site: Channel Navigation . www.channelswimmingassociation.com . Channel Swimming Association . 13 June 2024 . en.
3. News: 2019-08-27 . English Channel: The history of swimming the Channel . 2024-09-06 . BBC Newsround . en-GB.
4. http://www.ishof.org/honorees/65/65cmwebb.html Captain Matthew Webb
5. Staff. "The Channel Swim: Burgess's Perseverance Rewarded After Fifteen failures", Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 12581, 11 October 1911, Page 8. Accessed 5 August 2010.
6. Staff. "Henry Sullivan Crossed Channel - United States Swimmer Swam From England to France in 27 Hours 25 Minutes - Seventh Attempt - Third to Accomplish Feat - Capt. Webb and Burgess Other Two", The Montreal Gazette, 7 August 1923. Accessed 5 August 2010.
7. Staff. "Cuts Webb's Time in Channel Swim; Tirabocchi of Argentina Is the First to Succeed Over the Calais-to-Dover Route. 16 Hours 33 Mins. in Water Second Winner of L1,000 Prize Is Exhausted at Finish -- Toth Quits Near Goal. Cuts Webb's Time in Channel Swim", The New York Times, 13 August 1923. Accessed 5 August 2010.
8. Staff. "Toth Swims Channel; Misses 1,000 Prize; Boston's Man's Feat Just Two Days Too Late For Reward.", The New York Times, 10 September 1923, 5 August 2010.
9. Web site: Toth, Charles . Channel Swimming Dover . 12 June 2024 . en.
10. News: Paul. Gallico. First Queen of Channel Swimmers . https://web.archive.org/web/20121021221407/http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/465897152.html?dids=465897152:465897152&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:AI&type=historic&date=Jan+19,+1964&author=&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&desc=GERTRUDE+EDERLE:+First+Queen+of+Channel+Swimmers&pqatl=google . dead . 21 October 2012 . 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 . . 19 January 1964 . 12 August 2009 .
11. Rutherford, Alec. "Expert's Story of Swim.", The New York Times, 7 August 1926. Accessed 5 August 2010.
12. Staff. "Mrs. Corson Self-Trained.; She Has Swum Around Manhattan and From Albany to New York.", The New York Times, 29 August 1926. Accessed 6 August 2010.
13. Staff. "Mrs. Carson Starts to Swim Channel; Woman Who Made Albany to New York Record Reported Making Excellent Progress.", The New York Times, 28 August 1926. Accessed 5 August 2010.
14. Staff. "Sport: First Mother", Time, 6 September 1926. Accessed 6 August 2010.
15. Staff. "Channel swimmer sets slowest record", BBC News, 27 July 2010. Accessed 5 August 2010.
16. News: 1923-09-27 . CHARLES TOTH . 2024-10-06 . . 1.
17. News: Richard. Severo. Gertrude Ederle, who was called America's best girl by President Calvin Coolidge in 1926 after she became the first woman to swim across the English Channel, died yesterday at a nursing home in Wyckoff, N.J. She was 98. . Gertrude Ederle, the First Woman to Swim Across the English Channel, Dies at 98 . . 1 December 2003 . 11 August 2009 .
18. 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."
19. News: 1926-08-29 . Nearly Equaled Ederle's Time.: SECOND WOMAN TO SWIM THE ENGLISH CHANNEL. MRS. CORSON SWIMS ENGLISH CHANNEL . 2024-10-05 . . 1, 3.
20. Web site: Vierkotter, Ernst . 2024-10-06 . Channel Swimming Dover . en.
21. Web site: People of Note . 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. . https://web.archive.org/web/20150924092204/http://www.rotherhamweb.co.uk/h/burgess.htm . 24 September 2015 . dead .
22. http://www.qualitytyme.net/pages/rolex_articles/m_gleitze.html The Vindication Swim: Mercedes Gleitze and Rolex take the plunge and become world-renowned
23. Web site: English Channel . 15 April 2022 . The History of Aquatic Sports in Southern Africa.
24. Web site: skbl.se - Sally Viola Bauer . 2024-08-04 . skbl.se . en.
25. Web site: Bryan Finlay . A Pioneering Canadian Marathon Swimmer . 2017-06-22 . Soloswims.com.
26. http://www.soloswims.com/can-chan.htm
27. Web site: 31 October 2014 . Jenny James: First Welsh person to swim the channel dies . 27 September 2023 . BBC News.
28. Web site: Tegeltija . Sam . 2014-10-30 . The first Welsh woman to swim across the English channel, Jenny James, dies at the age of 87 . 2023-09-27 . WalesOnline . en.
29. Web site: Jacques Amyot . 2024-07-23 . www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca . en.
30. Bose, Anjali, Samsad Bangali Chariutabhidhan, Vol II, p. 268, Sishu Sahitya Samsad Pvt. Ltd.,
31. Channel Swimming Dover: Channel swimmer, Dennis Pearson. https://www.channelswimmingdover.org.uk/content/photo/channel-swimmer-dennis-pearson
32. Web site: Niko Nestor, 1st North Macedonian to Swim Across The English Channel dies aged 81 . 2018-04-15 . Channel Swimming Association.
33. Openwaterpedia: Peter Bales. https://openwaterpedia.com/wiki/Peter_Bales
34. News: North Macedonian swimming great Bojadzi dies at 66 . 2018-04-15 . USA Today.
35. Web site: Derry's Ray Cossum - first person from Ireland to swim English channel - inducted into Hall of Fame .
36. News: 2 August 1970 . Irishman Swims Channe . The New York Times . NYTimes.com.
37. Web site: Nejib BelHedi - Solo Channel Swimmer . 13 September 2015.
38. Web site: 中国人征服英吉利 张健成功横渡英吉利海峡 . https://web.archive.org/web/20240720194510/https://2014.sohu.com/41/19/sports_news163371941.shtml . 2024-07-20.
39. Web site: 张健成为横渡英吉利海峡中国第一人 . https://archive.today/20240720195423/http://news.enorth.com.cn/system/2001/07/30/000102704.shtml . 2024-07-20.
40. Web site: Zhang Jian . 20 July 2024 . Dover Council.
41. Web site: 21 August 2003 . United through swimming- Chris Gibbs swims the channel . 13 November 2018 . United Caribbean Trust.
42. Web site: Singapore Cross-English Channel Charity Swim . 2021-02-25 . channel.thum.org.
43. Web site: First Icelandic woman swims the Channel . 2024-07-24 . Iceland Monitor.
44. Web site: Syrian lecturer successfully completes English Channel swim University of Essex . 2019-08-16 . www.essex.ac.uk.
45. News: Bárbara Hernández conquista el Canal de la Mancha . 17 December 2019 . La Tercera.
46. Web site: Cindy Nicholas . 2024-07-23 . www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca . en.
47. Web site: Cindy Nicholas . 2024-07-23 . ISHOF . en-US.
48. News: 1 September 1998 . Briefs . . 7.
49. News: Sarah Thomas: Woman First to Swim Channel Four Times Non-stop . 17 September 2019 . BBC.
50. News: Alnwick woman becomes first solo English Channel stoma swimmer . 15 September 2023 . BBC.
51. Web site: 2023-09-09 . Waschburger durchquert Ärmelkanal in Weltrekordzeit . 17 November 2023 . SR . de-DE.
52. Web site: Oldest person to swim the English Channel (female). 21 August 2018. Guinness World Records. 15 April 2022 .
53. News: South African Otto Thaning, 73, is oldest channel swimmer . BBC News . 2014-09-07 . 2017-06-22.
54. Web site: Samantha Druce 1983 . Channel Swimming Association .
55. Web site: Thomas Gregory 1988 . Channel Swimming Association . 28 August 2018.