HMS Challenger (1931)

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. After that, the ship was moved to Portsmouth for completion and commissioned on 15 March 1932.

Service history
Until the outbreak of the Second World War, Challenger surveyed the waters around the United Kingdom, Labrador, the West Indies, and the East Indies. From 1939 to 1942, she was assigned duties around the United Kingdom. From 1942 to 1946, the vessel surveyed in the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific.

Challenger returned to Chatham in 1946 for a refit before returning to the Persian Gulf late 1946. She left the Gulf in 1947 and went to Cyprus where a shore party logged tides. She then proceeded to Gibraltar for another refit in dry dock.

She made a world circumnavigation from 1950 to 1953 that included surveying in the West Indies and the Far East. It was during this mission, in 1951 that Challenger surveyed the Mariana Trench near Guam, including the deepest known point in the oceans, 11,033 m deep at its maximum, near 11.35°N, 142.2°W. This point had been named Challenger Deep after it was first surveyed in 1875 during an expedition by a previous HMS Challenger (1858). In January 1954, Challenger returned to the UK, paid off, and was broken up at Dover.