Channel Record

Laughing and whistling as he went, Enrique Tirabocchi, Argentine natator, splashed his way across the treacherous English Channel from Cape Griz-Nez, France, to Dover, England, in 16 hours and 33 minutes.

This time was 5 hours and 12 minutes faster than the record set by Captain Mathew Webb in 1875 --10 hours and 17 minutes faster than Henry Sullivan of Lowell, Mass., who crossed from West to East a fortnight ago.

The Channel has not grown narrower. It is still 22.5 miles as the cables lie and three other swimmers were swamped in it last week. But Tirabocchi had good guidance and only three tides to battle. His course was N-shaped, Sullivan's like a W. He crossed so fast he did not, like Sullivan, grow a beard in the water. Also (unlike Sullivan) he had not the strength to march ashore at once to a restaurant for ice-cream and soup.

Like Sullivan, the Pampas porpoise received -L-1,000 and a gold medal from the Channel Swimming Club. The Daily Sketch now offers -L-1,000 for the next crossing.

Officially Senor Tirabocchi is the first man in history to swim from France to England and the fourth to cross the Channel either way. In a letter to The New York Times, F. E. Dalton of New York City claimed that in August, 1890, his father, Captain Davis Dalton, swam from Cape Griz-Nez to Folkestone in 231/2 hours, being covered with jellyfish bites when he landed and blinded by salt for two weeks afterwards.