An ambitious charity bid by four Leicester businessmen to become the first to travel from Lands End to John O'Groats by water has been abandoned after the team had to be rescued for a second time.

Dominic Gomersall, Paul Bassett, Ian Mattioli and Andy Lyon have called it a day after they got into difficulty in the North Sea on Saturday.

After successfully making it out of the Humber Estuary, the team, accompanied by Olympic rower Gary Reid, found themselves a few miles out to sea when the tide changed and the wind turned to northerly, blowing them back towards land – and busy shipping lanes.

A Royal National Lifeboat Institute (RNLI) lifeboat was immediately sent out to rescue them "while they were still in one piece".

It came just three days after the rowers were saved by the Coastguard after getting caught in treacherous weather conditions near to the Humber Bridge. They were grounded for two days waiting for conditions to improve, and had only set off again on Saturday morning, just hours before their second dramatic rescue.

The Humber RNLI is the only full-time crew in the UK – indicating the severity of the sea in the area. With high winds from the north predicted for the next few days, the team have made the decision to end their epic 1,097-mile challenge.

Leader Dominic, owner of Leicester jewellers Lumbers, said: "Unfortunately we had another dramatic rescue and have had to call it a day.

"We were going out of the Humber Estuary on Saturday. We rode so fast that we quickly rowed past Grimsby and into the North Sea.

"The tide changed – we were expecting that and thought we could hold ourselves. But then the wind turned to northerly and started blowing us backwards, straight into the shipping lanes out of Grimsby, which are huge, with big ferries and tankers going out.

"We thought we should phone the Coastguard to see what we should do, whether we should row back.

"But they just said that if we were in the shipping lanes, we were waiting to be ferry fodder and that they'd rather rescue us while we were still in one piece.

"They sent out the Pride of the Humber boat, which took us back to Grimsby. We felt that we'd been saved twice, we couldn't ask the emergency services to save us again.

"We decided our adventure had to come to a premature end."

While the Lands End to John O'Groats challenge is a familiar route for cyclists and joggers, the Leicester team were the first to attempt it by boat. Although they didn't claim that title, they still made it home with two records under their belts.

First, they completed the 120-mile stretch from Lands End to Ilfracombe, in Devon, in 31 hours – quicker than any other rowers before them. The team also set another world record at Foxton Locks, where they made it through the locks in 20 minutes and 46 seconds – smashing the record of 29 minutes.

They were also met by celebrities – including Leicester snooker star Willie Thorne and Tigers player Ben Kay – at various points.

"It's with great sadness that we've decided to end it but we're delighted with what we've achieved," said Dominic. "We set two records and we're the first people to row from Lands End to the North Sea.

"I'm sure now we'll see other people attempting it. Whether we will again remains to be seen."

The team have so far raised about £20,000 in sponsorship, to be split between Rainbows children's hospice, the Brain Tumour Trust, the RNLI and the Prince's Trust.