The Peking is a steel-hulled four-masted sailing only barque freighter. A so-called Flying P-Liner of the German company F. Laeisz, it was one of the last generation of windjammers used in the nitrate trade and wheat trade around the often treacherous Cape Horn.
Video Peking (ship)
History
Peking was made famous by the sail training pioneer Irving Johnson; his footage filmed on board during a passage around Cape Horn in 1929 shocked experienced Cape Horn veterans and landsmen alike at the extreme conditions Peking experienced. It made this trip around the cape to Chile 34 times.
Nitrate trade
Peking was launched in February 1911 and left Hamburg for her maiden voyage to Valparaiso in May of the same year. After the outbreak of World War I she was interned at Valparaiso and remained in Chile for the duration of the war. Awarded to Italy as war reparation she was sold back to her original owners Laeisz brothers in January 1923.
She remained in the nitrate trade until traffic through the Panama Canal proved quicker and more economical.
Arethusa
In 1932, she was sold for £6,250 to Shaftesbury Homes. She was first towed to Greenhithe, renamed Arethusa II and moored alongside the existing Arethusa I. In July 1933, she was moved to a new permanent mooring off Upnor on the River Medway, where she served as a children's home and training school. She was officially "opened" by HRH Prince George on 25 July 1933. During World War II she served in the Royal Navy as HMS Pekin.
The ship is featured in many exterior shots of the 1964 Miss Marple film, Murder Ahoy! standing in as the Battledore, a charity-run training vessel for wayward boys.
Museum ship in New York
Arethusa II was retired in 1974 and sold to Jack Aron as Peking, for the South Street Seaport Museum in New York City, where she remained for the next four decades. However, the Seaport NYC did not see the Peking as part of its long-term operational plans, and was planning to send the Peking to the scrap yard. A 2012 offer to return the ship to Hamburg, where she was originally built, as a gift from the city of New York, was contingent upon raising an endowment in Germany to ensure the preservation of the vessel.
Return to Germany
In November 2015 the 'Maritim Foundation' purchased the ship for US $100. Peking is intended to become part of the German Port Museum (Deutsches Hafenmuseum) at Schuppen 52 in Hamburg for which EUR120 million of federal funds will provided. She was taken to Caddell Dry Dock, Staten Island, on September 7, 2016, to spend the winter. On July 17, 2017, she was docked, and two days later, she was transported, at a cost of some EUR1 million, in the hold of the semi-submersible heavy-lift ship Combi Dock III across the Atlantic, arriving on July 30, 2017 at Brunsbüttel.
Refurbishment in Germany
On August 2, 2017, she was transferred to Peters Werft located at Wewelsfleth for a 3 year refurbishment at estimated cost of EUR26 million:
- New rigging
- New double floor steel plates
- Dismounting of all masts, because these are too rotten
- Docking in dry-dock and renewal of the steel structure
- Removal of the cement that fills the lower three and a half metres of the Hull
The ship will spend about a year and a half in dry dock. Afterwards the Peking will be refloated and the Teak will be reinstalled before she will be taken to Hamburg to the German Port Museum.
There might also be an opportunity to make her sail again.
Maps Peking (ship)
See also
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- "Ralph McTell" song about the Peking, "Around the Wild Cape Horn" from his album, "Somewhere Down the Road"
- Flying P-Liner "sisters" in Europe:
- Padua - still active as a sail training ship under Russian flag as Kruzenshtern. Unique among them further motorised.
- Pamir - lost 1957 in the Atlantic
- Passat - museum ship in Germany, and sister-ship to the Peking
- Pommern - museum ship in Finland
- Other preserved barques
- Falls of Clyde
- Star of India
- Moshulu
- Polly Woodside
- James Craig
- Elissa
- Sigyn, the last wooden barque in original configuration
References
Notes
Bibliography
- Johnson, Irving. Round the Horn in a Square Rigger (Milton Bradley, 1932) (reprinted as The Peking Battles Cape Horn (Sea History Press, 1977 ISBN 0-930248-02-3)
- Johnson, Irving. Around Cape Horn (film) (Mystic Seaport, 1985) (from original 16 mm footage shot by Irving Johnson, 1929)
External links
Media related to Peking (ship) at Wikimedia Commons
- The History of Shaftesbury Homes and the Arethusa, giving details of the purchase of the Pekin/Peking
- South Street Seaport Museum webpage
Source of article : Wikipedia
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