Challenger (clipper)

For other uses, see Challenger.

Career (UK)
Builder:	Richard & Henry Green, Blackwall Yard
Launched:	1852
Fate:	lost at sea 1871
General characteristics
Class and type:	Clipper
Length:	174 ft (53 m)
Beam:	32 ft (9.8 m)
Draught:	20 ft (6.1 m)

Challenger was a wooden clipper ship built in 1852 by Richard & Henry Green, Blackwall Yard for Hugh Hamilton Lindsay, London.

From "The Copartnership Herald", Vol. I, no. 8 (October 1931)

...American ships, which still held the supremacy until soon after Richard Green had declared his decision not to be beaten by them. He had a new tea clipper built at his yard at Blackwall, called the Challenger, of 699 tons, and she was sent off to China in 1852. Having loaded tea at Shanghai, she set out for London, calling in at Anjer, where she met the American ship, Challenge, which was on her way to London with a cargo of tea from Canton. The Challenge was a 2,000 tonner, built expressly for speed and capacity, and was the largest clipper built by the Americans until that time. So it was that a race home was started by these two vessels, the smaller British clipper gaining London two days ahead of her huge rival. Naturally, this set the hearts of all the British owners aglow, and was instrumental in urging on the efforts of our shippers to capture the China trade.

Between 14 June and 20 October 1863 The Challenger sailed from Hankow to London in 128 days with a cargo of tea at £7 10s to £8 per ton.

She measured 174'×32'×20' and tonnage 699 NM, 649,74 GRT & NRT, and 614,07 tons under deck.

She was designed for the China tea trade.

In 1868 it was sold to William Stewart, London, but sold four days later to John Grice, Thomas Grice & James Septimus Grice, London.

Sold again in 1871 and transferred to Melbourne, but abandoned shortly at 48°N, 13°W, southwest of the port of Plymouth, England.

External links

• Challenger 1852

References

• It Is Not Death to Die; Jim Cromarty; OMF books 2001