Challenger (clipper)

Richard Green's ship, the Challenger
History
United Kingdom
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 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 she was sold to William Stewart, London, but sold four days later to John Grice, Thomas Grice & James Septimus Grice, London.

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

Memorial

She is commemorated by a bas relief, on the side of the statue of Richard Green. The statue stands outside the Poplar Baths in London, not far from where she was built.[1]

References

  1. ↑ "Richard Green statue". PMSA Public Momuments & Sculpture Association. Retrieved 12 May 2018.

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

Coordinates: 48°N 13°W / 48°N 13°W / 48; -13

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