Satellite view of the English Channel
The 'English Channel' (, "the sleeve") is an arm of the
Atlantic Ocean that separates the
island of
Great Britain from northern
France and joins the
North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about 560 km (350 miles) long and varies in width from 240 km (150 miles) at its widest to only 34 km (21 miles) in the
Strait of Dover.
[1] It is the smallest of the shallow seas around the continental shelf of Europe, covering an area of only some 75,000 km² (29,000 square miles).
[2]
Geography
Map of the English Channel
The length of the Channel is most often defined as the line between
Land's End and
Ushant at the (arbitrarily defined) western end, and the Strait of Dover at the eastern end. The Strait is also the Channel's narrowest point, while its widest point lies between
Lyme Bay and the Gulf of
Saint Malo near the midpoint of the waterway.
1 It is relatively shallow, with an average depth of about 120 m at its widest part, reducing to about 45 m between
Dover and
Calais. From there eastwards the sea continues to shallow to about 26 m in the
Broad Fourteens where it lies over the watershed of the former land bridge between
East Anglia and the
Low Countries. It reaches a maximum depth of 180 m (590 ft) in the submerged valley of
Hurds Deep, 30 km (19 miles) northwest of
Guernsey.
[3]
A number of major islands are situated in the Channel, of which the most notable are the
Isle of Wight off the English coast and the British-ruled
Channel Islands off the coast of France. The
Isles of Scilly off the far south-west coast of England are not generally counted as being in the Channel. The coastline, particularly on the French shore, is deeply indented; the
Cotentin Peninsula in France juts out into the Channel, and the Isle of Wight creates a small parallel channel known as the
Solent.
The Channel is of geologically recent origins, having been dry land for most of the
Pleistocene period. It is thought to have been created between 450,000 and 180,000 years ago by two catastrophic
glacial lake outburst floods caused by the breaching of the
Weald-Artois Anticline, a ridge which held back a large
proglacial lake in the
Doggerland region, now submerged under the North Sea. The flood would have lasted several months, releasing as much as one million cubic metres of water per second. The cause of the breach is not known but may have been caused by an
earthquake or simply the build-up of
water pressure in the lake. As well as destroying the isthmus that connected Britain to continental Europe, the flood carved a large bedrock-floored valley down the length of the English Channel, leaving behind streamlined islands and longitudinal erosional grooves characteristic of catastrophic megaflood events.
[4]
At its west end, it is narrowly separated from the
Celtic Sea and
Bay of Biscay by the peninsulas of
Cornwall and
Brittany respectively.
For the UK
Shipping Forecast the English Channel is divided into the areas of (from the West):
★
Plymouth
★
Portland
★
Wight
★
Dover
Name
Map with French nomenclature
The name "English Channel" has been widely used since the early 18th century, possibly originating from the designation ''Engelse Kanaal'' in
Dutch sea maps from the 16th century onwards. Prior to then it was known as the British Sea, and it was called the ''Oceanus Britannicus'' by the 2nd century geographer
Ptolemy. The same name is used on an Italian map of about 1450 which gives the alternative name of "canalites Anglie" - possibly the first recorded use of the "Channel" designation.
[5] The French name "La Manche", referring to the Channel's sleevelike shape, has been in use since at least the 17th century.
2
In
Breton it is known as "Mor Breizh" (the Sea of
Brittany).
Archaeology
The geology and geography of the Channel make it a productive site for
Maritime Archaeologists and it has thousands of shipwrecks
[6]
In August of 2007, artifacts including wood and hazel nuts from the 8000-year-old
Bouldnor Cliff Mesolithic Village were presented by the
Underwater Archaeology Centre based in the Isle of Wight. The preservation of organic material from the stone age is unique to the UK and already the site is of international importance.
The most famous shipwreck is
Henry VIII's flagship the
Mary Rose.
History
The channel has been the key natural defence for Britain, halting invading armies whilst in conjunction with control of the North Sea allowing her to blockade the continent. The most significant failed invasion threats came when the Dutch and Belgian ports were held by a major continental power, e.g from the
Spanish Armada in 1588,
Napoleon during the
Napoleonic Wars, and
Nazi Germany during World War II. Successful invasions including the
Roman conquest of Britain and the
Norman Conquest in
1066 whilst the concentration of excellent harbours in the Western Channel on Britain's south coast made possible the largest invasion of all times: the
Normandy landings in 1944. Channel
naval battles include the
Battle of Goodwin Sands (1652), the
Battle of Portland (
1653), the
Battle of La Hougue (1692) and the engagement between
USS ''Kearsarge'' and
CSS ''Alabama'' (1864).
In more peaceful times the channel served as a link joining shared cultures and political structures, particularly the huge
Angevin Empire from 1135-1217.
For nearly a thousand years, the Channel also provided a link between the
Modern Celtic regions and languages of
Cornwall
and
Brittany. Brittany was founded by
Britons who fled
Cornwall and
Devon after Anglo-Saxon encroachment. In Brittany, there is a region known as "
Cornouaille" (Cornwall) in French and "Kernev" in
Breton (cf "Kernow", the Cornish for Cornwall). Anciently there was also a "
Domnonia" (Devon) in Brittany as well.
The way to the British Isles
This is the approximate extent of Old Norse and related languages in the early 10th century around the North Sea. The red area is the distribution of the dialect
Old West Norse, the orange area is the spread of the dialect
Old East Norse and the green area is the extent of the other Germanic languages with which Old Norse still retained some mutual intelligibility
and Pliny
[7] both suggest trade between the rebel celtic tribes of
Armorica and
Iron Age Britain flourished. In
55 BC Julius Caesar invaded claiming that the Britons had aided the
Veneti against him the previous year. He was more successful in
54 but Britain wasn't fully established as part of the Roman Empire until completion of the invasion by
Aulus Plautius in
43 AD. A brisk and regular trade began between ports in Roman
Gaul and those in Britain. This traffic continued until the
Roman departure from Britain in
410 AD after which we enter
early Anglo-Saxon times and historical records are generally far less clear.
In the power vacuum left by the retreating Romans, the Germanic
Angles,
Saxons, and
Jutes began the next great migration across the North Sea. Having already been used as mercenaries in Britain by the Romans, many people from these tribes migrated across the North Sea during the
Migration Period, conquering and perhaps displacing the native
Celtic populations.
[8]
Norsemen and Normans
The Hermitage of Saint
Helier lies in the bay off
St. Helier and is accessible on foot at low tide
The attack on
Lindisfarne in
793 is generally considered the beginning of the
Viking Age. For the next 250 years the Scandinavian raiders of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark dominated the North Sea, raiding monasteries, homes, and towns along the coast and along the rivers that ran inland. According to the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle they began to settle in Britain in 851. They continued to settle in the British Isles and the continent until around 1050.
[8]
The
fiefdom of Normandy was created for the
Viking leader
Rollo (also known as Robert of Normandy). Rollo had besieged
Paris but in
911 entered
vassalage to the
king of the
West Franks Charles the Simple through the
Treaty of St.-Claire-sur-Epte. In exchange for his
homage and
fealty, Rollo legally gained the territory he and his Viking allies had previously conquered. The name "Normandy" reflects Rollo's Viking (i.e. "Northman") origins.
The descendants of Rollo and his followers adopted the local
Gallo-Romantic language and intermarried with the area’s previous inhabitants and became the
Normans – a
Norman French-speaking mixture of
Scandinavians,
Hiberno-Norse,
Orcadians,
Anglo-Danish, and indigenous
Franks and
Gauls.
Rollo's descendant
William, Duke of Normandy became king of England in
1066 in the
Norman Conquest culminating at the
Battle of Hastings while retaining the fiefdom of Normandy for himself and his descendants. In 1204, during the reign of
King John, mainland Normandy was taken from England by France under
Philip II while insular Normandy (the
Channel Islands) remained under English control. In
1259,
Henry III of England recognized the legality of French possession of mainland Normandy under the
Treaty of Paris . His successors, however, often fought to regain control of mainland French Normandy.
With the rise of
William the Conqueror the North Sea and Channel began to lose some of its importance. The new order oriented most of England and Scandinavia's trade south, toward the
Mediterranean and the Orient.
Although the British surrendered claims to mainland Normandy and other French possessions in
1801, the monarch of the United Kingdom retains the title Duke of Normandy in respect to the Channel Islands. The Channel Islands (except for
Chausey) remain a
Crown dependency of the
British Crown in the present era. Thus the
Loyal Toast in the Channel Islands is ''La Reine, notre Duc'' ("The Queen, our Duke"). The British monarch is understood to ''not'' be the Duke of Normandy in regards of the French region of Normandy described herein, by virtue of the
Treaty of Paris of 1259, the surrender of French possessions in 1801, and the belief that the rights of succession to that title are subject to
Salic Law which excludes inheritance through female heirs.
French Normandy was occupied by English forces during the
Hundred Years' War in
1346-
1360 and again in
1415-
1450.
Britain: the naval superpower
From the reign of Elizabeth I, English foreign policy concentrated on preventing invasion across the Channel by ensuring no major European power controlled the potential Dutch and Belgian invasion ports. Her climb to the pre-eminent sea power of the world began in
1588 as the attempted invasion of the
Spanish Armada was defeated by the combination of outstanding naval tactics by the English under command of
Sir Francis Drake and the breaking of the bad weather. The strengthened English Navy waged several wars with their continental neighbours and by the end of the 17th century had erased the Dutch's previously world-spanning empire.
[8]
The building of the
British Empire was possible only because the British navy exercised unquestioned control over the seas around Europe, especially the Channel and the
North Sea. The only significant challenge to British domination of the seas came during the
Napoleonic Wars. The
Battle of Trafalgar took place off the coast of Spain against a combined French and Spanish fleet and was won by Admiral
Horatio Nelson, ending
Napoleon's plans for a cross-Channel invasion and securing British dominance of the seas for over a century.
The First World War
The exceptional strategic importance of the Channel as a tool for blockade was recognised by the First Sea Lord
Admiral Fisher in the years before WW1.
"Five keys lock up the world! Singapore, the Cape, Alexandria, Gibraltar, Dover."
[11]
Because the Kaiserliche Marine surface fleet could not match the British Grand Fleet, the Germans developed submarine warfare which was to become a far greater threat to Britain.
The
Dover Patrol was set up just before war started to escort cross-Channel troopships and to prevent submarines from accessing the Channel, thereby obliging them to travel to the Atlantic via the much longer route around Scotland.
On January 31st 1917 the Germans restarted unrestricted submarine warfare leading to dire Admiralty predictions that submarines would defeat Britain by November
[12], the most dangerous situation Britain faced in either World War.
The battle of
Passchendaele in 1917, was fought to reduce the threat by capturing the submarine bases on the Belgian coast though it was the introduction of
convoys and not capture of the bases that averted defeat.
In April 1918 the Dover patrol carried out the famous
Zeebrugge Raid against the U boat bases.
The Naval blockade effected via the Channel and North Sea was one of the decisive factors in the German defeat in 1918.
[13]
The Second World War
British radar facilities during the Battle for Britain 1940
The
Second World War was, in naval terms, again mostly a submarine v Allied escort war fought in the
Atlantic.
The early stages of the
Battle of Britain featured air attacks on Channel shipping and ports and until the
Normandy landings with the exception of the
Channel Dash the narrow waters were too dangerous for major warships. However, despite these early successes against shipping, the Germans did not win the air supremacy necessary for a cross Channel invasion.
The Channel subsequently became the stage for an intensive coastal war, featuring submarines,
minesweepers, and
Fast Attack Craft.
[8]
150mm World War II German gun emplacement in Normandy.
The town of
Dieppe was the site of the ill-fated
Dieppe Raid by
Canadian and
British armed forces. More successful was the later
Operation Overlord (also known as
D-Day), a massive invasion of
German-occupied France by
Allied troops.
Caen,
Cherbourg,
Carentan,
Falaise and other Norman towns endured many casualties in the fight for the province, which continued until the closing of the so-called
Falaise gap between
Chambois and
Montormel, then liberation of
Le Havre.
As part of the
Atlantic Wall, between 1940 and 1945 the occupying
German forces and the
Organisation Todt constructed fortifications round the coasts of the Channel Islands such as this observation tower at Les Landes, Jersey
The
Channel Islands were the only part of the
British Commonwealth occupied by Germany (excepting the part of
Egypt occupied by the
Afrika Korps at the time of the
Second Battle of El Alamein). The German occupation 1940–1945 was harsh, with some island residents being taken for
slave labour on the Continent; native
Jews sent to
concentration camps;
partisan resistance and retribution; accusations of
collaboration; and slave labour (primarily
Russians and eastern Europeans) being brought to the islands to build
fortifications. The
Royal Navy blockaded the islands from time to time, particularly following the
liberation of mainland Normandy in 1944. Intense negotiations resulted in some
Red Cross humanitarian aid, but there was considerable hunger and privation during the five years of
German occupation particularly in the final months when the population were close to starvation. The German troops on the islands surrendered on 9th May 1945 only a few days after the final surrender in mainland Europe.
Population
The English Channel is densely populated on both shores, on which are situated a number of major ports and resorts possessing a combined population of over 3.5 million people. The most significant towns and cities along the Channel (each with more than 20,000 inhabitants, ranked in descending order; populations are the
urban area populations from the 1999 French census, 2001 UK census, and 2001 Jersey census) are as follows:
English side
★
Brighton–
Worthing–
Littlehampton: 461,181 inhabitants
★
Portsmouth: 442,252
★
Bournemouth: 383,713
★
Southampton: 304,400
★
Plymouth: 243,795
★
Torbay (
Torquay): 129,702
★
Hastings–
Bexhill: 126,386
★
Eastbourne: 106,562
★
Bognor Regis: 62,141
★
Folkestone–
Hythe: 60,039
★
Weymouth: 56,043
★
Dover: 39,078
★
Exmouth: 32,972
★
Falmouth–
Penryn: 28,801
★
Ryde: 22,806
★
Seaford: 21,851
★
Penzance: 20,255
French side
★
Le Havre: 248,547 inhabitants
★
Calais: 104,852
★
Boulogne-sur-Mer: 92,704
★
Cherbourg: 89,704
★
Saint-Brieuc: 85,849
★
Saint-Malo: 50,675
★
Lannion–
Perros-Guirec: 48,990
★
Dieppe: 42,202
★
Morlaix: 35,996
★
Dinard: 25,006
★
Étaples–
Le Touquet-Paris-Plage: 23,994
★
Fécamp: 22,717
★
Eu–
Le Tréport: 22,019
★
Trouville-sur-Mer–
Deauville: 20,406
★
Berck: 20,113
Channel Islands
★
Saint Helier: 28,310 inhabitants
★
Saint Peter Port: 16,488 inhabitants
Shipping
The Channel, with the North sea-Atlantic traffic along the Channel crossing the path of the UK-Europe traffic, is one of the World's busiest seaways carrying over 400 ships per day. Following an accident in January 1971 and a series of disastrous collisions with wreckage in February
[2],
the
Dover Traffic Separation system (TSS)
the World's first
Radar controlled TSS was set up by the
International Maritime Organization.
In December 2002 the
MV Tricolor, carrying £30m of luxury cars sank 32 km (20 m) north west of Dunkirk after collision in fog with the container ship Kariba. The cargo ship Nicola ran into the wreckage the next day. However there was no loss of life.
The system was updated in 2003 and is one of the most advanced systems in the World. Though long range shore based systems are inherently not capable of reaching the levels of safety obtainable from aviation systems such as the
Traffic Collision Avoidance System, it has reduced accidents to one or two a year.
Marine GPS systems allow ships to be preprogrammed to accurately and automatically follow navigational channels, further avoiding risk of running aground but, following the fatal collision between Dutch Aquamarine and Ash in October 2001,
Britain's Marine Accident Investigation Branch, MAIB issued a
safety bulletin saying it believed GPS actually contributed and ships tended to maintain a very precise course, one behind the other rather than use the full width of the traffic lanes.
Accidents will happen. A combination of
radar difficulties in monitoring areas near cliffs, a failure of a CCTV system, incorrect operation of the anchor, the inability of the crew to follow standard procedures of using a GPS to provide early warning of the ship dragging the anchor and reluctance to admit the mistake and start the engine led to the MV Willy running aground in Cawsand bay,
Cornwall in January 2002. The
Marine Accident Investigation Branch report makes it clear that the harbour controllers were actually informed of impending disaster by shore observers even before the crew were themselves aware! The village of
Kingsand was
evacuated for
3 days due to very serious risk of explosion and the ship was stranded for
11 days.
Because of the risk to life,
unorthodoxed crossings of the Dover Straits is banned under French Law, the only exception being for
Cross Channel swimming attempts organised and approved by the Channel Swimming Association (CSA) and (CS&PF).
Ecology
As a busy shipping lane, the English Channel experiences environmental problems following accidents involving ships with toxic cargo
[3] and oil spills. Indeed over 40% of the UK incidents threatening pollution, occur in or very near the Channel.
[4]
One of the best known and least loved was the
Napoli which with nearly 1700 tonnes of dangerous cargo was controversially beached in Lyme bay, a protected World Heritage Site coastline. The ship had been damaged and was en route to Portland when much nearer harbours were available.
The Channel Islands is important for
protected wetland species and includes a number of
Ramsar sites.
Transport links
View of the beach of Le Havre and a part of the rebuilt city
Ferry
Important ferry routes are:
★ Dover-Calais
★ Newhaven-Dieppe
★ Portsmouth-Caen (Ouistreham)
★ Portsmouth-Cherbourg
★ Portsmouth-Le Havre
★ Poole-Saint Malo
★ Poole-Cherbourg
★ Weymouth-Saint Malo
★ Plymouth-Roscoff
Channel Tunnel
Many travellers cross beneath the English Channel using the
Channel Tunnel. This engineering feat, first proposed in the early 19th century and finally realised in 1994, connects the UK and France by
rail. It is now routine to travel between
Paris,
Brussels and
London on the
Eurostar train.
Economy
Tourism
The coastal resorts of the channel, such as
Brighton and
Deauville, inaugurated an era of aristocratic tourism in the early 19th century, which developed into the seaside tourism that has shaped resorts around the world. Short trips across the channel for leisure purposes are often referred to as
Channel Hopping.
Culture and languages
Kelham's ''Dictionary of the Norman or Old French Language'' (1779), dealing with England's
Law French, a cross channel relic
A streetsign in Merck-Saint-Liévin,
Pas-de-Calais, showing Germanic influence in local toponyms. The name Picquendal corresponds to the modern Dutch ''Pikkendal''.
The two dominant cultures are English on the north shore of the Channel, and French on the south shore. However, there are also a number of minority languages that are/were found on the shores and islands of the English Channel, which are listed here, with the Channel's name following them.
Celtic Languages
★
Breton (Brezhoneg) - "Mor Breizh" (Sea of
Brittany)
★
Cornish (Kernuack) - "Chanel"
Germanic languages
★
English
★
Flemish (Vlaams) - "Het Kanaal" (the Channel)
Flemish previously had a larger range, and extended into parts of the modern day French state. For more information, please see
French Flemish.
Romance Languages
★
French language - "La Manche"
★
Gallo
★
Norman, including the Channel Island vernaculars -
★
★
Anglo-Norman (extinct, but still fossilised in certain English law phrases)
★
★
Auregnais (extinct)
★
★
Cotentinais - ''Maunche''
★
★
Guernesiais - ''Ch'nal''
★
★
Jèrriais - ''Ch'na''
★
★
Sercquais
★
Picard
The English Channel has a variety of names in these languages. In Breton, it is known as ''Mor Breizh'' meaning the Sea of Brittany; in Norman, the Channel Island dialects use forms of "channel", e.g. ''Ch'nal'', whereas the Mainland dialects tend more towards the French as in ''Maunche''. In Flemish and
Dutch it is ''Het Kanaal'' (the channel).
Most other languages tend towards variants of the French and English forms, but notably
Welsh has "Môr Udd"
Notable channel crossings
As one of the narrowest but most famous international waterways lacking dangerous currents, crossing the Channel has been the first objective of a number of innovative sea, air and human powered technologies. Some of these are given below.
| Date | Crossing | Participant(s) | Notes |
|---|
| 7 January 1785 | First crossing by air (in balloon, from Dover to Calais) | Jean-Pierre Blanchard (France)
John Jeffries (U.S.) | — |
| 15 June 1785 | First air crash
(in combination hydrogen / hot-air balloon) | Pilâtre de Rozier (France) Pierre Romain (France) | Attempted crossing similar to Blanchard/Jeffries |
| 25 August 1875 | First known person to swim the channel (Dover to Calais, 21 hrs, 45 min) | Matthew Webb (UK) | Attempted crossing on 12 August the same year; forced to abandon swim due to strong winds/rough sea conditions |
| 27 March 1899 | First radio transmission across the Channel (from (Wimereux to South Foreland Lighthouse) | Guglielmo Marconi (Italy) | |
| 25 July 1909 | First person to cross the channel in a heavier-than-air aircraft (the ''Blériot XI'') (Calais to Dover, 37 minutes) | Louis Blériot (France) | Encouraged by £1000 prize being offered by the ''Daily Mail'' for first successful flight across the channel |
| 23 August 1910 | First aircraft flight with passengers | John Bevins Moisant (U.S.) | Passengers were mechanic Albert Fileux and Moisant's cat. |
| 25 July, 1959 | Hovercraft crossing (Calais to Dover, 2 hours 3 minutes) | SR-N1 | Sir Christopher Cockerell was on board |
| August 22, 1972 | First solo hovercraft crossing (same route as SR-N1; 2 hours 20 minutes[15]) | Nigel Beale (UK) | |
| 12 June 1979 | First human-powered aircraft to fly over the channel
(in 70-pound (32-kg) ''Gossamer Albatross'') | Bryan Allen (U.S.) | Won a £100,000 Kremer Prize; Allen pedaled for three hours |
| 1997 | First vessel to complete a solar-powered crossing using photovoltaic cells. | ''SB Collinda'' | — |
| 14 June 2004 | New record time for crossing in amphibious vehicle (the Gibbs Aquada, two-seater open-top sports car) | Richard Branson (UK) | Completed crossing in 100 min 06 sec. Broke record by about six hours. |
| 26 July 2006 | New record time for crossing in hydrofoil car (the Rinspeed Splash, two-seater open-top sports car) | Frank M. Rinderknecht (SUI) | Completed crossing in 194 min (link with photos) |
By boat
Pierre Andriel crossed the English Channel aboard the ''
Élise'' in 1815, one of the earliest sea going voyages by
steam ship .
The
Mountbatten class hovercraft (MCH) entered commercial service in August
1968 initially operated between Dover and Boulogne but later craft also made the
Ramsgate (
Pegwell Bay) to Calais route. The journey time, Dover to Boulogne, was roughly 35 minutes, with six trips a day at peak times. The fastest ever crossing of the English Channel by a commercial car-carrying hovercraft was 22 minutes, recorded by the ''Princess Anne'' MCH SR-N4 Mk3 on
14 September 1995
[16], for the 10:00 am service .
The youngest recorded sailors to cross the channel by boat are Hugo Sunnucks and Guy Harrison aged 15 (formular 18
catamaran). They completed in 4 hours 15 mins in August 2006.
By swimming
The sport of Channel Swimming traces its origins to the latter part of the 19th century when Captain
Matthew Webb made the first observed and unassisted swim across the Strait of Dover swimming from England to France on
24 August–
25 August 1875 in 21 hours and 45 minutes.
In 1927 (at a time when fewer than ten swimmers had managed to emulate the feat and a number of dubious claims were being made), the
Channel Swimming Association (the CSA) was founded to authenticate and ratify swimmers' claims to have swum the English Channel and to verify crossing times. The CSA was dissolved in 1999 and succeeded by two separate organisations: The
CSA (Ltd) and the
Channel Swimming and Piloting Federation (CSPF) (
website). Both organisations are registered with the international governing body for swimming
Fédération Internationale de Natation Amateur (FINA) (
website) and observe and authenticate cross-Channel swims in the Strait of Dover.
Although the swimming rules and regulations of the two organisations are virtually identical, the CSA has not always been prepared to recognise swims conducted under the auspices of the larger and more popular CSPF.
A comprehensive list of all registered and verified 'solo swims' is available from
http://home.btconnect.com/critchlow/ChannelSwimDatabase.htm
A comprehensive list of all registered and verified 'solo and relay swims' is available from
http://www.doverlife.co.uk/channelswimming
For a list of Channel Swimming Association Records for swims registered only under the rules of the Channel Swimming Association and verified by that body, go to
http://www.channelswimmingassociation.com
★ On
24 August–
25 August 1875 Capt. Matthew Webb made the first crossing of the English Channel from England to France.
★ On
12 August 1923 Enrico Tiraboschi made the first crossing of the English Channel from France to England.
★ On
6 August 1926,
Gertrude Ederle became the first woman to swim the Channel. She did it in 14 hours and 31 minutes, breaking the men's record of the time by two hours.
★ On
24 November 1927, Mercedes Gleitze, the first British lady, swims across wearing a Rolex Oyster.
★ In July
1972,
Lynne Cox became the youngest person to swim the English Channel at age fifteen, breaking both the men's and women's records. She swam the channel again in 1973, setting a new record time of nine hours and thirty-six minutes.
★ The oldest verified male swimmer to cross is American George Brunstad, who was aged 70 years and 4 days when he crossed on
27 August and
28 August 2004, taking 15 hours 59 min.
★ The oldest male swimmer to cross under the rules of the Channel Swimming Association is Australian Clifford Batt, who was aged 67 years and 240 days when he crossed on
19 August 1987, taking 18 hours 37 minutes.
★ The fastest ever verified swim of the channel was by
Peter Stoychev on
24 August 2007. He crossed the channel in 6 hours 57 minutes and 50 seconds.
★ The fastest verified female channel swimmer is Yvetta Hlaváčová in
2006. She crossed the channel in 7 hours 25 minutes and 15 seconds.
★ The fastest swim of the channel made under Channel Swimming Association rules is by Chad Hundeby of the USA on
27 September 1994. He crossed the channel in 7 hours 17 minutes.
★ The titles "King" and "Queen" of the Channel, held by those with the most successful crossings, are taken seriously by the swimming community and there has been some controversy over the refusal by some to recognise others' swims.
★ The undisputed "
Queen of the Channel" is
Alison Streeter MBE with 43 crossings including one 3-way and three 2-way swims; 39 of those crossings are recognised and authenticated by the CSA.
★ The righful "King of the Channel" title was conferred by the CSPF on
Kevin Murphy (34 crossings, including three doubles) and then dubiously by the CAS on
Michael Read (with 33 crossings of the English Channel authenticated by the CSA.
★ Other swimming crossings include:
Vicki Keith (first butterfly swim crossing);
Florence Chadwick (first woman to swim the Channel in both directions); Montserrat Tresserras (first woman to swim the Channel in both directions, as verified by the Channel Swimming Association);
Marilyn Bell (youngest person up to
1955);
Amelia Gade Corson (first mother and second woman);
Mercedes Gleitze (first Englishwoman,
7 October 1927);
Brojen Das, the first Asian (
23 August 1958); Comedians who have swum the channel
Doon Mackichan, and
David Walliams (
BBC report).
The team with the most number of Channel swims to its credit is the International Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team with 35 crossings by 25 members (by 2005).
[5]
By the end of 2005, 811 individuals had completed 1185 verified crossings under the rules of the CSA, the CSA (Ltd), the CSPF and Butlins.
The total number of swims conducted under and ratified by the Channel Swimming Association to 2005: 982 successful crossings by 665 people. This includes twenty-four 2-way crossings and three 3-way crossings.
Total number of ratified swims to 2004: 948 successful crossings by 675 people (456 by men and 214 by women). There have been sixteen 2-way crossings (9 by men and 7 by women). There have been three 3-way crossings (2 by men and 1 by a woman). (It is unclear whether this last set of data is comprehensive or CSA-only.)
References
1. "English Channel". ''The Columbia Encyclopedia'', 2004.
2. "English Channel." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007.
3. "English Channel." ''The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia including Atlas.'' 2005.
4. Catastrophic flooding origin of shelf valley systems in the English Channel, , Sanjeev, Gupta, Nature, 2007
5. "Map Of Great Britain, Ca. 1450", Collect Britain
6. http://www.ryemuseum.co.uk/shipwrec.htm
7. [1]
8.
9.
10.
11. http://www.manorhouse.clara.net/book3/chapter2.htm
12. http://www.germannotes.com/hist_ww1_uboat.shtml
13. http://uboat.net/history/wwi/
14.
15. Verifiable in Hovercraft Club of Great Britain Records and Archives.
16. Hovercraft Facts
See also
★
Phoenix breakwaters
★
Booze cruise
External links
★
Information about Dover and Channel Swimming
★
Oceanus Britannicus or British Sea
★
Channel swimmers website
★
Archives of long distance swimming
★
Sponsor David Walliam's Sport Relief swim
★
Channel Swimming and Piloting Federation
★
Channel Swimming Association
★
World War II Eye Witness Account - Audio Recording AIR BATTLE OVER THE ENGLISH CHANNEL (1940)
العربية
中国
Français
Deutsch
Ελληνική
हिन्दी
Italiano
日本語
Português
Русский
Español
