This is a list of notable successful swims across the English Channel,[1] a straight-line distance of at least 18.2nmi.[2]
After a seaman had floated across the Channel on a bundle of straw, 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.[3]
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).[4]
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.[5] 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.[6] 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.[7] [8]
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.[9] 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.[10]
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.[11] 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.[12] 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.[13]
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.[14]
| Direction | Country of origin | width=150 | Swimmer | Year | Time | class=unsortable | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| England to France | 1875 | 21:45 | First ever 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 | 1926 | 14:39 | First woman to cross in either direction.[15] [16] | ||||
| France to England | 1927 | 15:15 | First British woman to cross the English Channel.[17] | ||||
| France to England | Margaret ('Peggy') Duncan | 1930 | 16:17 | First known person from Southern Africa to swim the English Channel.[18] | |||
| France to England | 1934 | 15:34 | 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.[19] | ||||
| France to England | 1939 | 15:22 | First Swede, and first Scandinavian, to swim the English Channel.[20] | ||||
| England to France | 1953 | 14:42 | First woman to swim the English Channel in both directions (on separate occasions). | ||||
| France to England | 1951 | 13:25 | First Canadian to swim the English Channel.[21] [22] | ||||
| France to England | Jenny James | 1951 | 13:55 | First Welsh person to swim the English Channel.[23] [24] | |||
| England to France | Damian Pizá Beltran | 1953 | 15:23 | First Mexican to swim the English Channel. | |||
| England to France | 1955 | 14:06 | First vegetarian swimmer to cross the English Channel. | ||||
| France to England | 1956 | 13:02 | First Canadian man to swim the English Channel.[25] | ||||
| France to England | 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 | 1958 | 14:45 | First Indian to swim the English Channel.[26] | ||||
| 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.[27] | |||
| France to England | 1959 | 14:20 | First Indian woman and first Asian woman to swim the English Channel. | ||||
| France to England | 1959 | 12:06 | First Macedonian to swim the English Channel.[28] | ||||
| England to France to England | 1961 | 43:10 | First person to swim the channel both ways non-stop. | ||||
| 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.[29] | |||
| France to England | 1969 | 13:20 | First Macedonian to swim the English Channel.[30] | ||||
| 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.[31] [32] | |||
| France to England | 1971 | 15:26 | First Czech (Czechoslovak at that time) to swim the channel. | ||||
| England to France | 1975 | 11:10 | First Polish person to swim the English Channel. | ||||
| English to France to England | 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).[33] She holds the record for the most two-way crossings with a total of five.[34] | ||||
| England to France | 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 | 1981 | 12:30 | First black swimmer to cross the Channel. | ||||
| England to France to England to France | 1981 | 38:27 | First person to swim the channel three ways. | ||||
| England to France | 1993 | 16:35 | First Tunisian to swim the channel, namesake of a trophy for swimming the channel at the highest tide.[35] | ||||
| England to France | 1998 | 12:55 | First paraplegic to swim the Channel.[36] | ||||
| 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. [37] [38] [39] | |||
| England to France | Norway | ||||||
| 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.[40] | |||
| England to France | 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.[41] | |||
| England to France | 2007 | 6:57 | First swimmer to cross the English Channel under 7 hours. | ||||
| England to France | 2010 | 13:28 | First quadruple amputee to swim the English Channel. | ||||
| England to France | 2015 | 22:34 | First Icelandic woman to swim the English Channel.[42] | ||||
| 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.[43] | |||
| England to France | Bárbara Hernández | 2019 | 12:13 | First Chilean to swim the English Channel.[44] | |||
| England to France to England to France to England | 2019 | 54:10 | First person to swim the channel four ways non-stop.[45] | ||||
| England to France | Gillian Castle | 2023 | 13:53 | First person with a stoma to swim the Channel.[46] |
| Record | Country of origin | Swimmer | Time | Date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Men | Andreas Waschburger [47] | 06:45 | Sep. 2023 | ||
| Women | Yvetta Hlaváčová | 07:25 | 2006 | ||
| Men two ways | Philip Rush | 18:10 | 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 |
| 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 |
| Record | Country of origin | Swimmer | Age | Date | Reference | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Women | Linda Ashmore | 71 years | August 21, 2018 | [48] | ||
| Men | Otto Thaning | 73 years | September 6, 2014 | [49] |
| Record | Country of origin | Swimmer | Age | Date | Reference | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Women | Samantha Druce | 12 years, 118 days | 1983 | [50] | ||
| Men | Thomas Gregory | 11 years, 330 days | 1988 | [51] |
| Record | Country of origin | Swimmers | Time | Date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 swimmers | 9:22 | 2005 | |||
| 3 swimmers | 9:39 | 2011 | |||
| 4 swimmers | 8:22 | 2011 |