A MOTHER and her 14-year-old son have both smashed their Channel relay team charity swims within one day of each other.

Three teams from the same Southbourne-based swimming group all completed the gruelling challenge in the same week. Liam Artingstall, 14, from Fordingbridge who was part of male relay team, the Funk Seal Brothers, is now hoping to be the youngest ever solo Channel swimmer.

He said: “I’m going to have to start training really hard from now on. We had to swim 33 miles instead of 21 because of the tide, but I was still really happy to beat my mum’s time.”

His mother Viv swam as part of the Pink Ladies team on August 21 and finished just 21 minutes slower than the men who took up the challenge on August 20. She said: “I don’t know which was tougher, swimming the Channel or tracking my son’s swim from France and feeling completely helpless.”

The Pink Ladies consisting of Beckie Spry, Gemma Peat, Lucy Hawthorne, Gill Muldoon, Emma Christison and Viv Artingstall have raised £3,720 for the RNLI and the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance.

With no wetsuits allowed, the group completed the roughly 21 mile swim wearing only costumes, goggles and a hat.

Emma said: “We are absolutely ecstatic and on such a high after waiting so long for the call. The girls all swam like rockets, overcoming jellyfish stings and Becky even got back into the water for her second swim after suffering from sea sickness.”

Mixed group, the Seabrook Space Cadets, started their swim at 9am on Friday August 23 and spent 17 hours 12 minutes in the water.