WikiCommons The English Channel.
Watertown’s Natalie Lang recently completed a swim from the United Kingdom to France.
Lang made the 21 mile crossing in August in just over 12 hours, according to the story on WCVB Channel 5. She completed the swim on her first attempt.
She trained for the long-distance swim at Walden Pond in Concord.
The first person to swim across the English Channel was British man Matthew Webb in 1875, according to Wikipedia. The Brit crossed in a time of 21 hours 45 minutes. The first woman to swim the Channel was an American, Gertrude Ederle in 1926. She made it in 14 hours 39 minutes. The fastest crossing was Australian Trent Grimsey in 2012, who did it in 6 hours 55 minutes. Czech Yvetta Hlavocova is the fastest woman, who swam across in 7 hours 25 minutes in 2006.
See the WCVB report and video by clicking here.