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Yeah, pretty common behaviour on Folkestone - we always trained there rather than Dover too. Would usually have a beach butler giving feeds every hour for a longer swim, this guy was clearly hardcore enough to go that long without food and water (unless he had some gels in his trunks).
My mate went on the first (i.e. coldest) tide of the year a few years ago and did 21.5 hrs, ending up swept to the wrong side of Calais. Won some CSA annual award for endurance as it was the longest, coldest crossing of the year. He has a proper walrus build, and had trained for cold water for years. An RNLI guy told us that if someone fell off a boat in that temperature, after 20 minutes they'd be looking for a body.
Tide does play a huge part - my first crossing (2-up relay), we tracked about 36 miles for the 20 mile crossing. That's not unusual.
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@graunch
Years and years ago (like 40+) when I was a child we were on holiday in Folkestone. A chap came over in the morning and said 'are you going to be here a while? I am training to swim the channel, I wonder if you could watch my clothes. I'll be a while, don't worry about me'. The day happenned and he didn't return. It got towards when we were going back to our luxurious caravan and my parents were quite worried 'on the one hand he said he'd be a while, on the other, this is a very big while. They weren't entirely sure whether to call the coastguard or desert the clothes when back he breezed, without a care in the world.
In other news, I had a pal Rob, who did the channel. He definitely DID hallucinate, and knew that he would from talking to others. He told me he found it quite comforting because he knew he was at 'that' part. He came out of it and finished his swim. I seem to remember that he was the longest duration swim of the year, whcih meant the tide had taken him a phenomenal distance.
EDIT: A quick look at the CSA website tells me it wasn't the longest crossing