A SAILOR raised thousands of pounds for a hospital after he broke the Guinness world record for the longest continual row yesterday.

Master at Arms Dave Harris has entered the record books for the third time after he completed 73 hours on a rowing machine on board County Durham's adopted Royal Navy ship, HMS Bulwark.

He rowed 626,125 continuous metres on a rowing machine over three days as the ship made its way home to Plymouth, breaking the record at 9am.

In the process, the 42-year-old father-of-three, from Plymouth, has raised money for the children's ward at Bishop Auckland General Hospital -one of HMS Buwark's adopted charities.

He was sponsored by the ship's company and other organisations, and collected several thousand pounds.

"The hospital needs around £5,000 to buy a recorder to diagnose sleep-disordered breathing," said Mr Harris, whose job is to look after discipline on the ship.

The record has stood since 2001, and was set in California, and Mr Harris already holds two world indoor rowing records. In November 2001, he broke the 24-hour non-stop record by rowing 307km.

In November 2004, during HMS Bulwark's first visit to County Durham, he rowed 100,000 metres in six hours 55 minutes and 52.9 seconds, beating the previous best by more than 17 minutes.

He said: "More people have walked on the moon than have rowed for even just 24 hours without stopping. Knowing that the ship's company and hospital staff were cheering me on was a real boost."

To count as a continual row, the rules state the person has to row for 50 minutes out of every hour. This allows ten minutes out of each hour for eating, stretching and replacing lost fluids.