The Challenge

The Challenge at last set sail for Shanghai and over the course of the voyage the crew proved to be such a rebellious and mutinous lot that Captain Land was forced to put into Hong Kong, where he fortunately found the U.S.S. Vincennes at anchor. Land requested that Commodore John Aulick send a squad of marines about his ship to bring the men to reason and restore order, which the commodore promptly did.

Land curtailed the visit to Shanghai and instead took aboard 553 Chinese coolies at Hong Kong and set sail for a swift voyage back to San Francisco in 34 days, one day over the record passage. Over the course of the voyage, the Challenge reached a speed of 16 knots and her best day's run was 360 miles, quite remarkable.

After a short stay of seven days in port, the Challenge cleared San Francisco, again for Hong Kong, and was off Honolulu eight days out. She was within 400 miles of Hong Kong 23 days out and had covered the distance experiencing only moderate winds, but then adverse winds came head-on and it took the clipper almost three weeks to reach Hong Kong.

Captain Land died at Hong Kong. Mr. Pitts, a former mate of the Witchcraft, took over command and sailed for Whampoa to take on a cargo of tea. The Challenge made a remarkable passage of 105 days to the London docks, which was the shortest run of the season surpassing the runs of the Surprise, Nightingale, and Race Horse, as well as several British clippers Stornaway, Chrysolite, and Challenger.

The Challenge attracted much attention at the London docks, where the Admiralty requested permission to take her lines off, which was granted. The Challenge then left London on a round voyage to China and led the fleet on the outward passage. On the return passage, she leaked so badly that passengers and crew were forced to man the pumps over much of the voyage and her damaged cargo was discharged at Fayal.

The Challenge then returned to New York. The Griswold's then decided to send her on another voyage around the Horn to San Francisco, this time under the command of Captain J. Kenney.

On her second voyage around the Horn, the Challenge cleared New York on September 4, 1854, and made the Farallon Islands in 114 days, where she hauled off in a fog and made it through the Golden Gate four days later. The Challenge then sailed across the Pacific in 58 days to China and then on to Manila. The Challenge reached Anjer in 39 days on her homeward passage to New York, arriving there 75 days from Anjer, 117 days from Manila.

The Challenge

The Challenge then sailed from New York back around the Cape of Good Hope to Hong Kong, where 800 coolies came aboard for a passage to Melbourne.

The Challenge returned to China, where she took on 900 coolies and sailed from Swatow, this time for Havana. On this passage, many of the coolies got sick, along with seven of the crew members as well as Captain Kenney, and he was forced to put into port for medical attention and water. There had also been a mutiny aboard the Challenge as well as a suicide. Back at New York, the Griswolds decided to send the Challenge on a third run around the Horn that was to be her last.

This time under the command of Captain Fabens, the Challenge cleared New York on July 17, 1858, and arrived at the Golden Gate 117 days later. Light baffling winds encountered at the beginning and end of her passage were detrimental to her overall time. Her passage from when she crossed the equator in the Atlantic to her crossing the equator in the Pacific was a swift 55 days. The fickle winds had again deprived the Challenge of a record-breaking passage.

The Challenge then crossed the Pacific to Hong Kong in 46 days and returned to San Francisco with a large number of coolies aboard in 46 days. She then sailed for China again and on this passage all three topmasts with sails and rigging came crashing down along with the lower mastheads. Captain Fabens rigged jury masts and completed the passage to Hong Kong, where the ship was sold.

Her new owner left her in a neglected state for most of a year. In late 1860, the Challenge was sold again, this time to Captain Haskell for $9350. Her new owner refitted and rerigged the Challenge cutting down her spar plan for the second time since her launching and sailed her to Bombay, where he sold her to Thomas Hunt & Co., who decided to rename her the Golden City. For the next four years, the Golden City engaged in the Chinese and Indian trade while hailing out of Hong Kong, until 1866.

That year, the Golden City had arrived at the East India Dock in London, when Captain Joseph Wilson, a British shipper, was inspecting a ship tied up alongside the Golden City. Right away the huge clipper caught the captain's eye. Wilson immediately became interested in her after a walk across her deck that he judged to be "magnificent." The ship-keeper, who had been formally employed aboard Wilson's own ships, informed Wilson that the Golden City was to be sold at auction. The two men knew each other so the ship-keeper showed Wilson all over the ship. Soon, Wilson was making inquiries to the Golden City's owners about further information concerning the ship that he had come upon moored at the East India Dock.

Wilson recalled that "All the information I got was 'confounded pick-pocket,' 'weak,' and 'won't sail.' One man said he 'wouldn't be paid to own her.'"

Wilson & Co. of South Shields, England bought her anyway, and soon Wilson had her towed over to his own wharf to give her a thorough inspection, lower her rigging for the third time, and make repairs. By then he was determined to track down the origins of the Golden City.

Wilson wrote of her: "A lot of blocks and other things were found on overhauling her with the name Challenge on them. I looked up Lloyd's and found that the ship had been classed in the book, and after some little bother got all unraveled and proved that this was the same old American clipper Challenge."

While not entirely pleased with her, Wilson wrote that "She made very good passages, but in general was not, with me, the very fast ship she had been originally." Without her former lofty rigging that owed much to Robert Waterman and William Webb, the Golden City was now under-hatted and out of trim. Wilson's keen eye had spotted another flaw. "The principle error," wrote Wilson, "was a hollow waterline. . . a sea of three feet was always curling up between the stem and the fore rigging when going fast, and in ballast especially this effectually stopped her from being the very fastest vessel afloat."

One time when the Golden City was sailing along at a slow seven knots, Wilson observed the constant curling sidewash swamp a small boat as it was coming alongside and concluded that this fact had a sapping effect upon her power and slowed down her passage through the seas. Wilson spoke of the Golden City as a "stiff ship'' and "rolled with a heavy cargo, but on the whole did her work well," but nevertheless Wilson found the Golden City a dangerous ship to stay and it was a troublesome ship to sail in ballast.

Wilson concluded that the Golden City had some practical flaws in her basic design. He thought her bow too concave. Captain Waterman and Captain Land had never complained about this, but Waterman had never sailed her in ballast in her earlier loftier condition and Land had never commented upon this matter before his untimely death.

Wilson went on to employ the Golden City successfully in the Java and Bombay trade. Misfortune caught up with the Golden City again when rounding the Cape of Good Hope on a voyage to Java, where sailing along at twelve knots she ran into a gale and heavy seas. Large waves broke over the quarterdeck, carrying away her wheel and officer's deckhouse, along with all but one of her officers, including the captain, and seven men drowned. The Third Mate, who happened to be Wilson's nephew, survived. But the wreckage crushed him. A sailor at the helm escaped the crashing waves by swiftly climbing up the mizzen rigging 15 feet to safety. The survivors aboard the Golden City took her into the nearest port.

In 1876, while sailing off the French Coast, the Golden City lost her rudder and the once mighty clipper fetched up on an island off Ushant. Wilson picks up the commentary from there:

The crew left her and a French gun-boat got hold of her, and a lot of wooden-shoed and wooden-headed fishermen, and instead of towing the ship stern foremost, took her by the bow, when she took a shear and went on a reef of rocks.

The North Atlantic surf then proceeded to roll the Golden City over on her side and the constant pounding of the heavy surf soon smashed her hull to pieces. The sharpest clipper that had ever been built in William Webb's East River shipyard had outlived her rival, the Flying Cloud, by a year and the remains of the once mighty Challenge had found a final resting place at Aberbrache, off the western coast of France.

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