Windhover (clipper ship)
{{Use British English|date=December 2013}}
{{Use British English|date=December 2014}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2024}}
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{{Infobox ship image |Ship image=The ship ‘Windhover’ RMG BHC3723.jpg |Ship caption=The ship Windhover }} {{Infobox ship career |Hide header= |Ship country= United Kingdom |Ship flag= |Ship name= Windhover |Ship namesake= |Ship owner= Findlay & Co |Ship operator= |Ship registry= |Ship route= |Ship ordered= |Ship awarded= |Ship builder= Connell and Co., Glasgow, Scotland |Ship original cost= |Ship yard number= |Ship way number= |Ship laid down= |Ship launched= January 1868 |Ship sponsor= |Ship christened= |Ship completed= 1868 |Ship acquired= |Ship commissioned= |Ship recommissioned= |Ship decommissioned= |Ship maiden voyage= Glasgow to Liverpool, 1868 |Ship in service= |Ship out of service= |Ship renamed= |Ship reclassified= |Ship refit= |Ship struck= |Ship reinstated= |Ship homeport= Glasgow, Scotland |Ship identification= |Ship motto= |Ship nickname= |Ship honours= |Ship honors= |Ship captured= |Ship fate= Wrecked; Australia, 1889 |Ship notes= |Ship badge= }} {{Infobox ship characteristics |Hide header= |Header caption= |Ship class= |Ship type= Clipper Ship |Ship tonnage= {{NRT |847}}{{cite book |last=MacGregor |first=David R. |date= 1983|title=The Tea Clippers, Their History and Development 1833-1875 |publisher=Conway Maritime Press Limited |pages=192–194 |isbn=0-85177-256-0}} |Ship displacement= |Ship tons burthen= |Ship height= |Ship draught= |Ship draft= |Ship hold depth= |Ship decks= |Ship deck clearance= |Ship ramps= |Ship ice class= |Ship power= |Ship propulsion= |Ship sail plan=*fully rigged ship
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Windhover was a British tea clipper built in the closing years of construction of this sort of ship. She measured 847 tons NRT. Like the majority of the tea clippers built in the second half of the 1860s, she was of composite construction. She was built by Connell and Co, Glasgow, Scotland in 1868.
History
The Windhover's maiden voyage was from Glasgow, Scotland to Liverpool, Britain in 1868.
In 1870, the Windhover carried 1,064,645 lbs of tea from Foo Chow, China to London in 99 days, the best achieved that year before the monsoon changed direction (but bettered only by Lahloo and Leander with 98 days). The races of tea clippers from China had changed since The Great Tea Race of 1866 - a monetary prize ("the premium") was no longer included in the bill of lading of a tea clipper and the winner was judged to be the ship with the fastest passage, rather than the first to dock in London.
After the opening of the Suez Canal in 1870, clipper ships were replaced with faster steamships in the transport of tea and other cargo. Most were used in the Australian wool trade.{{cite web |url=https://archive.org/stream/cu31924020891416/cu31924020891416_djvu.txt|title=The Clipper Ship Era, an epitome of famous American and British clipper ships, their ownders, builders, commanders and crew, 1843-1869|pages = 332, 336, 346, 372 |last1=Clark |first1=Arthur H. |date=Nov 1910|publisher= G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York and Lond |access-date=30 September 2014 }} The Windhover traveled regularly to China, sailing to Shanghai, Foo-Chow, Yokohama and Hong Kong. She was bought by Kerr & Co in 1881 and altered to a barque rig while working the Australian trade routes, hauling coal from western Australia to the eastern cities.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LqxNAAAAcAAJ&q=windhover&pg=PA505|title=The London and China Telegraph: 1871|date=2 January 1871|website=www.nytimes.com|publisher= The London and China Telegraph|access-date=30 September 2014 }}
August 1889, the Windhover wrecked off the coast of Australia on the Bramble Cay Reef. She was carrying 1300 tons of coal bound for Batavia, Indonesia.{{cite web |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article9220044|title=WRECK OF THE BRITISH BARQUE|last1=Wells |first1=Pete |date=19 September 1889|publisher= The Mercury as taken from the Torres Straits Pilot (31 Aug. 1889)|access-date=30 September 2014 }}