An attempt to cross the channel in a highly modified Land Rover Defender 110 had to be aborted after the team encountered choppy waters. Land Rover Owner International (LRO) reports that the team members Jeff Willner, Steve Brooks and Mikael Strandberg had to be towed to safety by their rescue boat.

The team were tackling the first stage of an international overland expedition, and have said that they will not be deterred by their setback. The ambition is to drive two Defenders 18,000 miles from London to New York.

The vehicles have been fitted with TDCi engines with Stage 3 tuning, and are designed to be hitched together, to give them extra 8×8 traction in difficult conditions. They also have higher ratio gears to allow for higher cruising speeds, and 36in tyres.

HMS Engineering in Hereford have helped the guys adapt the vehicle for water crossings. The chassis and roll cage have extra buoyancy in the form of custom made flotation pontoons. A propellor is fitted to the end of the propshaft to power the amphibious vehicle through the water.

Unfortunately, a snapped rudder cable meant that the team had to abandon their sea crossing. For now, they are back at the drawing board, to redesign a safer system for the next attempt.

Jeff told LRO: ‘When we got into 6ft seas and we were pounding through the waves, it was good to know that they were over-engineered. Two of those pontoons can float everything, but we’ve got four so there’s redundancy.’

The team were not the first to design an amphibious Land Rover. The company’s Special Projects Division designed a water crossing Land Rover 90, to be used for promotional purposes at the 1989 Cowes Week. The base vehicle was a standard Diesel Turbo soft top.

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