HMS Challenger (1931)
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| History | |
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| Name: | HMS Challenger |
| Builder: | Chatham Dockyard |
| Laid down: | 1930 |
| Commissioned: | 15 March 1932 |
| Decommissioned: | January 1954 |
| Fate: | scrapped |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | survey ship |
| Displacement: | 1,140 tons |
| Length: | 220 ft (67 m) |
| Beam: | 36 ft (11 m) |
| Draught: | 12 ft 6 in (3.81 m) |
| Speed: | 12.5 knots (23.2 km/h; 14.4 mph) |
| Complement: | 84 |
| Armament: | None |
HMS Challenger was a survey ship of the United Kingdom's Royal Navy. She was laid down in 1930 at Chatham Dockyard and built in a dry dock. Afterwards she was moved to Portsmouth for completion and commissioned on 15 March 1932.
Until the outbreak of the Second World War, Challenger surveyed the waters around the United Kingdom, Labrador, the West Indies, and the East Indies. On 23 September 1932, she struck a rock 6 nautical miles (11 km) north of Ford's Harbour, Labrador, in the Dominion of Newfoundland (56°28′30″N 61°10′00″W / 56.47500°N 61.16667°W) and was beached. She was later refloated.
From 1939 to 1942 she served in home waters and as a convoy escort. In June and July 1941 she and three Flower-class corvettes escorted the troop ship Anselm from Britain en route for Freetown, Sierra Leone. When the troop ship was torpedoed north of the Azores, Challenger and the corvette HMS Starwort rescued hundreds of survivors and then transferred them to the armed merchant cruiser HMS Cathay.
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