Kate Middleton recovers from night of partying with early morning row

Instead, Kate Middleton simply gritted her teeth and got down to some solid rowing. Or rather some expert hair billowing.

A few hours earlier Prince William's girlfriend had been enjoying cocktails with friends at one of her favourite bars.

She finally rolled home around midnight.

By 7am she was up again, ready to sweat it out on the Thames with a charity dragon boat team.

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(Left-to-Right) Kate Middleton leaves her favourite nightclub, Mahiki, at 12am: Seven hours later, she was rowing with team mates on the Thames

But unlike her red-faced, puffing teammates, Miss Middleton looked poised and perfectly polished, a picture of regal calm at the tiller. (Her full face of early-morning make-up no doubt helped somewhat).

And no utilitarian hair bands or pony tails for her. She left her hair loose to billow flatteringly in the morning breeze.

The 25-year-old fashion buyer is taking part in an all-woman record-breaking attempt next month to row across the Channel.

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The team, known as The Sisterhood, will leave Dover in a fibre-glass Oriental- style boat and cross 21 nautical miles of open water to the Cap Gris Nez, close to Calais.

It will be a challenge by any stretch of the imagination, which is why Miss Middleton is training three times a week.

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Sisters act: Kate Middleton trains with the Scion Sisters on the Thames

But knowing she had to man the boats the next morning wasn't enough to put her off a session of a different kind with friends at Mahiki, the Mayfair bar that is a favourite of Prince William's.

Within hours she was one of the girls again as she arrived at Chiswick, West London, for an hourlong training session. As the team glided down-river to Hammersmith, she was paddling hard at the back of the boat.

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Seeing red: The all-woman crew, who wore matching beach shoes are rowing a dragonboat across the Channel next month in aid of charity

As they returned to base, however, she had possibly run out of puff, having the easier task of manning the tiller instead.

Also in the boat was team leader Emma Sayle who, as the Mail revealed this week, founded Killing Kittens, a firm that organises sex parties for wealthy couples.

Miss Middleton was persuaded to join the rowing team by Alicia Fox-Pitt, a friend from her days at Marlborough College in Wiltshire.

The girls hope to beat an all-male team across the Channel