The chart, which is here reproduced by permission from the ' Field ' newspaper, indicates the hourly progress and posi tion of the ` Captain ' during his marvellous swim on August 24 and 25, 1875, as well as the first swim previously mentioned.
The particulars of the feat are taken from the special report made by the representative of the same paper.
In his second and successful trial Webb started three and a quarter hours before high water at Dover on a 15 ft. zo in. tide. This gave him one hour and three-quarters of the south west stream, wherein he made one and a half mile of westing ; five and a quarter hours of north-east stream caused him to make eight and a half miles easting ; seven and a half hours south-west stream took him two and a half miles to the west ward of his course ; and seven hours north-east stream drifted him seven and a quarter miles to the eastward. He occupied three tides, in addition to one hour and three-quarters of south-west stream at the start, and about three-quarters of an hour slack water under Calais Pier at the finish, which protected him from the south-west stream then just beginning to ebb.
The nearest point of French land from where he dived was Cape Grisnez, distant seventeen and a half miles. His point of landing is twenty-one and a quarter miles from Dover, as the crow flies, but the actual length of the swim was thirty-nine and a half miles. Boyton, when he paddled across, took z hr. 33 mins. longer to cover about twenty-nine miles of water than Webb did to swim ten miles further.
Very little rest was taken by Webb, in fact hardly any. When he did stop it was to take refreshment, and then he was treading water. During the whole of the time he had no recourse to artificial aid in any way. Of this there is indis putable proof, for the journalists who accompanied him across were most careful in their observations, and were men whose accuracy could be absolutely relied upon. The temperature of the water was about 65°, and the most extraordinary part of the feat was the fact that Webb never complained of cold, and was only affected during his twenty-one hours' immersion by drowsiness through want of sleep, and fatigue from the terrible exertion. Before plunging in, he was well rubbed with porpoise oil, and when he landed on Calais Sands, the sailors who helped him to a carriage described him as feeling like a lump of cold tallow.
For the first fifteen hours the weather was splendid. The
sea was as smooth as glass, the sun obscured during the day by a haze so that the heat did not affect his head, and in the night a three-quarter moon lighted him on his way. The worst time began at 3 A.M. on August 25, as then drowsiness had to be overcome, and rough water was entered. At this hour he was only some fcur and a half miles off Cape Grisnez, and although he was not then strong enough to strike out a direct course athwart the new N.E. stream for land, he was fetching well in for Sangatte, where he would undoubtedly have landed between 7 and 8 A.M., had adverse weather not set in. After this it was only the man's indomitable pluck that kept him going. He finally landed on Calais Sands after having been in the water 21 hours 45 minutes.
Of course it was impossible to foresee the advent of bad weather at the close of the journey, but, as it afterwards turned out, had Webb started at midnight on August 23-24, he would have encountered just such a breeze as troubled him at the end of the journey, and this would have been preferable when he was fresh. Further, if he had plunged in an hour or an•hour and a half earlier than he actually did, he would have made more westing, and have avoided being drifted on to the broad part of the Straits, to the east of Cape Grisnez, at a time when all his strength and pluck were being severely taxed.
Throughout the journey, Webb swam on his breast, with slow and steady arm strokes, and powerful leg action, averaging about twenty per minute. He swam very high in the water, and at the conclusion of each stroke the soles of his feet emerged from the water. Such swimmers as Webb are men of their generation. His pluck and daring were of a high order, his straightforwardness unquestionable, and his sad death in the rapids of Niagara on July 24, 1883, therefore, all the more regrettable. He went there as a man wrecked in constitution, and playing what he must have known to be a losing game. The accomplishment of the grand feat we have described was the cause which led to his almost suicidal end, and all good sportsmen should remember Webb as the Channel hero, and let sink into oblivion the remembrance of him as the Madman of Niagara.' In 1898, F. Holmes, of Birmingham, who swam third in the long-distance amateur championship in 1896, when the race was contested in very rough weather, made an attempt to emulate Webb's feat, but failed after a long swim.