Peking (ship)

Not to be confused with the iron steamship City of Peking built in 1874

The Peking is currently docked at the South Street Seaport in New York City, where she acts as a maritime museum
History
Germany
Name:	Peking
Operator:	F. Laeisz
Route:	Europe–Chile
Builder:	Blohm & Voss, Hamburg
Laid down:	1911
Fate:	Interned at Valparaiso, and handed over to Italy as war reparations
Italy
Fate:	Sold back to F. Laeisz, 1923
Germany
Name:	Peking
Operator:	F. Laeisz
Route:	Europe–Chile
Acquired:	1923
Fate:	Sold to Shaftesbury Homes, 1932
United Kingdom
Name:	Arethusa II
Homeport:	Upnor, Medway
United Kingdom
Name:	HMS Pekin
In service:	World War II
United States
Name:	Peking
Acquired:	1975
Homeport:	New York City
Fate:	Museum ship
General characteristics
Class & type:	Flying P-Liner
Displacement:	3,100 long tons (3,150 t)
Length:	377 ft 6 in (115.06 m) sparred length 320 ft (98 m) length on deck
Beam:	45 ft 7 in (13.89 m)
Height:	170 ft 6 in (51.97 m)
Draft:	16 ft (4.9 m)
Sail plan:	44,132 sq ft (4,100.0 m2) sail area

The Peking is a steel-hulled four-masted barque. 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.

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.

She was in Valparaiso at the outbreak of World War I, and was awarded to Italy as war reparations. She was sold back to the original owners, the Laeisz brothers in 1923, and continued in the nitrate trade until traffic through the Panama Canal proved quicker and more economical.

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 her 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 Peking was retired in 1975 and sold to Jack Aron, for the South Street Seaport Museum in New York City, where she was still moored in 2014. However, the Seaport did not see the Peking as part of its long-term operational plans. 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, and was not successful on that basis. In November 2015 the German government decided to purchase the ship, to be a part of the announced German Port Museum in Hamburg, for which €120 million were allocated.

See also

• Flying P-Liner "sisters" in Europe:
  • Padua – still active as a sail training ship under Russian flag as Kruzenshtern
  • 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
  • James Craig
  • Elissa

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 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