MEMBERS of Dover Rowing Club have claimed two world records after four of their crews rowed across the Channel from Dover to Sangatte on Monday.

Two quads and two coxed fours made the long 21-mile crossing from Shakespeare Beach, as conditions became near perfect for the record attempt.

After many long training sessions spent on both the rowing machine and on the water it was finally time to put it all into practice for the real thing.

The first quad, consisting of Lee Stampton, Andy Bryant, Steve Tupper, Victor Evans and Josh Stevenson (cox) looked by far the trend setters for the whole event as they went out of sight into the Channel. They went ashore in France in a storming time of two hours 42 minutes and 45 seconds, just 45 seconds ahead of the previous best time held by Ditton’s Skiff and Punting Club who made the attempt in a six-man skiff in May 1996.

The new time has yet to be verified by the Guinness Book of World Records.

The second quad consisted of two fathers and sons, Reg and Aaron Kent, and Gary and Liam Cairns, with cox Jack Bryant, and landed in two hours 55 minutes.

Another race took place along the way between the two coxed fours, hot on each others tails all the way to France. They landed in three hours four minutes, with literally seconds separating them both.

This was were well ahead of the Cambridge University team’s three hours 37 minutes recorded earlier this summer.

One of the coxed fours crews, James Downer, Mark Simmons, Jim Seath, Matt Prosser and Charlotte Bailey (cox), became the youngest crew ever to row the Channel.

The second coxed four were Nick Bailey, Keith Thomasson, Steve Woods, Chris Price and Laura Thomasson (cox).

"Everyone taking part described the row as the most painful and hardest row of the their life with others displaying their sun burns and blisters from the day’s hard work," said Chris Price. It was a day which we will remember for the rest of their lives."