Challenge

The wooden barque Challenge was launched from the yard of Patten and Co., Quebec in June 1863. She measured 197.2′ x 35.5′ x 23.9′ and her tonnage was 1319 gross tons. Ordered by Mr Shankland, Greenock she was delivered to Scotland and her new owners later that year. In 1875 she was purchased by Messrs Adam and Co Ltd., also of Greenock who continued to operate the large sailing vessel on multiple routes, particularly back and forth across the Atlantic. On 20th October 1880 Challenge, under the command of Captain Campbell who had a crew of twenty three aboard, departed from Quebec bound for their home port of Greenock with a cargo of timber. Unknown to the captain or crew, three stowaways had slipped aboard unseen.

As they made their way across the North Atlantic they were continuously battered by storms but they had managed well in the severe weather although the voyage was taking much longer than planned. A full month later, as she was nearing the Scottish coast, they ran into yet another severe gale from the south west. This time the ship could take no more and on Thursday 25th November she became unmanageable as her sails were torn to shreds by the violent winds. As she drifted out of control towards the rocky west coast of Kintyre, the crew laboured on rain lashed decks to rig up new sails. These were hauled up the masts but no sooner were they unfurled then they too were torn to ribbons by the ever increasing wind.

The ship’s last chance of survival had vanished and, as the morning of Friday 26th dawned, the crew prepared themselves for the worst. In growing light they could see they were being swept towards the shallow waters on the south west corner of the island of Gigha. Sometime between ten and eleven o’clock that morning the ship struck the rocks at Lein Point and immediately began to break up with huge waves sweeping over her. Within two hours she had been smashed to pieces, littering the shores for miles with wreckage and her cargo.

A brave crew member tied a rope round his waist and attempted to swim to the shore but he was lost after he was hit by a floating log. The remaining crew and the unlucky stowaways had no choice but to risk the swim ashore. The position of the vessel and the boiling surf made it impossible to launch the ship’s boats. The hazardous swim was made even more dangerous by the hundreds of logs from the ship’s cargo deposited into the sea as she broke up. Five more of the crew and one of the stowaways, a young lad called Thomas Moran of Greenock, were lost as they tried to reach the shore, either drowned or crushed by the timber logs as they were tossed around in the huge swell.

The survivors were cared for by the residents on the island until they could be transferred to the mainland when the storm had abated. Before they departed they attended a burial service at Gigha Burial Ground for the four members of the crew whose bodies had been recovered. They arrived at Greenock on the SS Chevalier on the 30th to be met by an anxious crowd desperate for news of the dead and survivors.

As the vessel was wooden it is unlikely that much remains of her today but there are reports of copper nails and pins being found in the shallow water around the point.