Downstream

swimming manacled, only
this time ‘he swam the
university boat race course
from Putney to Mortlake,
towing a boat licensed to
carry eight persons’. Gautier
was tied to the boat with a
rope, and won a wager of
£100. In 1910 he again swam
from Putney Bridge to
Mortlake for a wager of £200.
But then in 1919, at the age
of sixty-two, Gautier’s
incredible career came to an