A New Record!

Thursday evening 4 October, I phone Mike Oram, one of the most highly sought after Sea Captains for the provision of safety boats to accompany swims and rows across the Channel.  I ask him about the likelihood of our row taking place at the weekend.  Definitely not on Friday or Saturday he tells me.  With this in mind I arrange for the crew to do one final ergo training session Friday evening at Cantabs boathouse and to then go out for a beer and curry afterwards.  We have a great night, but the uncertainty of our crossing date weighs heavy on everyone.

As instructed, I phone Mike again Saturday morning to see if Sunday is a possibility.  He tells me he’s just not sure.  The forecast is optimistic for Sunday, but he thinks it might be too optimistic.  In his opinion the sea could still be too choppy for us.  However, Monday could be possible, but by then we could be heading straight into a strong headwind, which will make the row hard with the possibility that a fair bit of water might end up in the boat.  He says it’s our shout if we want to head down Saturday afternoon in the hope we can go on Sunday, but to understand that we might need to hang around for the day in the hope we can go on Monday, which also couldn’t be guaranteed.

A crew meeting is held to decide what to do.  The decision is unanimous; we’ll drive down Saturday afternoon and play the waiting game in Dover.

Everyone arrives in Dover at around 7pm.  I’ve booked everyone into the Premier Inn right by the harbour.  From the hotel the sea seems calm.  Another phone call to Mike confirms that we should be able to go in the morning and that we should be at the marina for 6.30am.  Everyone is excited by the prospect and we head into central Dover to look for a restaurant, preferably Italian. 

Dover Castle

We have no success in finding a decent restaurant in the town centre.  We do find two Italian restaurants but they’re both shut.  The best option seems to be a Wetherspoon’s pub, which is rejected by most of the crew.  We decide to return to the Premier Inn to try their restaurant.  As it turns out the menu choice is vast, good value and surprisingly good.  Most crew members only drink soft drinks, whilst the three oldest members; namely myself, Richard and Steve have a beer.  The younger crew members express their shock and disbelief at this.  That evening Steve suggests that everyone should guess what time we will make the crossing in.  The predictions range mostly between 5 hours 20 minutes and 5 hours 45 minutes.  I think this is optimistic and guess at 6 hours 15 minutes, which the others think is a rather damning indictment on my behalf regarding their state of fitness.  The truth is it’s a wild guess and I don’t want to build anyone’s hopes up.

Jason teaching Liza how to use the video camera

Alan deciding which pie to eat

The next morning most people walk along the seafront to Dover Marina.  I get a lift with Steve and his wife, Liza, our only supporter, to take the vast quantity of bottled water and food containers.  We find the boat and introduce ourselves to Mike Oram and his son, Lance.

The rest of the crew arrive and we set about getting ready to depart.  Someone then points out that there is no sign of Steve.  He has apparently gone back to the hotel to fetch something that he has forgotten.  I still don’t know what it was that he’d left behind.  The rest of us sit in the gig shivering in the cold whilst we wait for Steve to return. 

The crew wait for Steve to re-appear

At some point Lance Oram, our safety boat pilot and Mike’s son, asks what sort of time we were aiming for.  Someone tells him about 5 hours 30 minutes. “That’s ambitious, boys,” he says in response.

Moments later, with Steve back with his missing item (assumed to be either his watch or gloves) we push ourselves off and make our way out of the harbour at a slow pace to warm up.  We stop at the harbour entrance to allow a massive ferry to enter as the sun breaks through the clouds.  Once the ferry has passed we are off. 

Waiting for the ferry to pass. From bow to stern: Dennis in the passenger seat, Gary (bow), Steve (No.2), Jason (3), Andy (4), Alan (5), Jonathan (stroke).  Richard is in the cox seat taking the picture.

Spirits are high and a good deal of banter is dealt out amongst the crew.  The banter is mostly good natured mockery between the bow crew of Steve, Jason, Gary and Dennis, and the stern crew of Richard, Andy, Jonathan and me.  We are definitely one team made up of two halves.  The crew practise speaking in pirate talk as we make our way across the Dover Strait.  As we approach the English side shipping lane the order is given out to prepare cutlasses for boarding and looting a passing tanker.  The tanker in question seems reasonably close and unfeasibly big.  We are later told that it actually altered its course by a few degrees in order to avoid us.

The White Cliffs of Dover - can you spot three mistakes on bow side?

Our safety boat.  Stroke side blades looking good.

The tanker that adjusted its course to avoid us.

When we reach the shipping land the first mate on the safety boat comes to the deck and shouts out, “You’re doing great guys. Do you think you can maintain this pace?”  We answer in the affirmative. Unbeknown to us at this point the two man crew on the safety boat are amazed at our progress.  Mike Oram is also tracking us from the shore and radios the boat to check there isn’t a mistake with the GPS tracker.  We’ve reached the English side shipping lane in an hour, and this usually takes most amateur crews two hours. 

Giving it some long, firm strokes.

Meanwhile, onboard Angela (the name of our fibreglass Adventure Gig) we have no idea how well we are doing.  The banter continues but we remain focused on the job at hand.  Whoever is in the cox seat points out any mistakes and the oarsmen do their best to correct these.  In general, the team work is impeccable.  The bow team periodically question the ability of the stern team to steer the boat straight.  The stern teams response to this is generally to shout back, “Shut the f**k up and row.”  Steering the gig with nothing to aim for on the horizon is difficult.  In practise we are suppose to stay about 10m to the side of the safety boat, but if you’re calling commands out to the crew and focusing all your attention on what is happening in the boat, it is easy to drift either away from, or closer to, the safety boat.

We have two distractions during our crossing.  First we are aware that there is a Channel swimmer ahead of us.  They’ve been out swimming since 2am.  As we pass we slow down and give them a massive cheer.  The female swimmer smiles and waves back.  A little further on we notice a plane overhead that seems to be flying towards us.  As it sweeps overhead Steve shouts out, “That’s my mate, Greg.”  Greg circles a couple more times in his Piper Cherokee and we all wave to the plane.  This was a great surprise to everyone except Liza.  The guys on the safety boat are also thrilled by the fly-pass.  They tell us they’ve only experienced one other fly-pass before and that was for a RAF crew.

Greg's view of boat and crew.

After rowing for two hours the first mate is back on the deck shouting at us, “You’re halfway.  If you maintain this pace you will set a new record”.  There is a stunned silence on the boat as the disbelief settles over us.  We had no idea we were going so well.  From this point on there would be no more cheerful banter.  With a record in sight everyone decides to knuckle down and do the best they can.  There is very little chat for the next hour and a half, just the cox shouting out commands and correcting individual errors.

I have no idea what the others are thinking.  I keep expecting the sea to change.  The crossing has been much calmer than anyone could have expected.  We’ve certainly trained in much rougher conditions, which has obviously been a great help.  However, I don’t allow myself to believe that we can actually set a new fastest time for the Channel crossing.  Every now and again we are hit by a rogue large wave.  We suspect that this is the bow wave of a tanker that has long since passed.  But I’m bracing myself with the expectation that these waves will get bigger and more frequent as we proceed.  To my relief this doesn’t happen.

As we get closer to France, Lance and his first mate come out on to the deck of the safety boat more often to give us encouragement.  “Come on guys, you’ve got about 4 miles to go.  Hang in there.  You’re doing a great job,” they shout out at us.  “Three miles to go, boys.  Fantastic rowing,” we hear from the safety boat.  Jonathan is coxing now.  He tries to make some sort of motivational speech which is shouted down.  “Shut the f**k up and just tell us to row,” is pretty much the unanimous response from the crew.

With two miles to go the call is given to increase the power of the strokes but to maintain the stroke rate.  Everyone puts everything into their strokes.  Things get a little untidy at times.  Everyone is shouting and correcting other’s mistakes.  “Dennis, you’re going in late”, “Richard, straighten your blade”, “lengthen your stroke, Steve”, “everyone, stay in time with stroke,” are just some examples of the corrections being shouted out.  It is almost impossible to hear Jonathan.  I shout over my shoulder for everyone to be quiet and let Jonathan cox.  We don’t need eight coxes in the boat.  Amazingly the last two miles turn out to be the fastest.

France, ahoy!

France is looming large.  We are heading for a rocky outcrop, not the beach we had all envisaged landing on.  When we are about 50m from shore the safety boat sounds a klaxon.  “You did it boys.  Well done.  You’ve set a new record,” the first mate shouts at us.  “Take a few moments then paddle back to us when you’re ready.”

"Easy oar."  We've made it.

It doesn’t really sink in what we’ve just achieved.  It’s almost an anticlimax.  We had expected to be rowing for 5.5 to 6 hours, but here we are, just off the coast of France in about 4 hours.  It seems too unbelievable.  As we sit there congratulating each other a group of French sea kayakers appear with big grins on their faces.  The person who seems to be the group leader comes close and says something to us in French, which I assume is congratulations.  Their presence confirms we’ve arrived in France, and it’s nice to have a welcoming committee.

Our welcoming committee.

We wave goodbye to the kayakers, turn the gig around and paddle up to the safety boat.  We’re helped onboard and congratulated by the crew and Liza. 

We did our crossing in 4 hours 3 minutes.  Lance tells us the previous record was 4 hours 24 minutes.  However, later in the day we discover that an N-Power team set a time of 4 hours 19 minutes back in July this year.  Regardless of what the previous time was, we had set a new record.  I looked around at the crew proud of our achievement.  When I had the idea of rowing across the Channel back in April I couldn’t have possibly imagined that this would be the outcome.

Time to start the celebrations

The first mate and Lance Oram

The record breakers

The ride back to Dover on the safety boat takes three hours.  This helps us to realise what we’d done that morning.  Back on dry land we shower and have a meal before making the drive back to Cambridge.  Everyone orders burger and chips, i.e. finger food, with the exception of Jonathan who has a roast dinner.  When his meal arrives he discovers his hands are in too much pain to be able to use a knife and fork, this is about 5 hours after finishing the row.  The rest of us feel smug for ordering food that doesn’t require cutlery.

We head off from Dover in three separate cars, agreeing that a big celebration is needed the following weekend.  I’m heading back with Jason.  Every now and again Jason lets out a restrained chuckle as the realisation that he is a record holder starts to dawn on him.  It’s been an incredible day.