''Peking'' is a steel-hulled four-masted

barque A barque, barc, or bark is a type of sailing ship, sailing vessel with three or more mast (sailing), masts having the fore- and mainmasts Square rig, rigged square and only the mizzen (the aftmost mast) Fore-and-aft rig, rigged fore and aft. Som ...

. A so-called

Flying P-Liner The Flying P-Liners were the sailing ships of the German shipping company F. Laeisz of Hamburg. History The company was founded in 1824 by Ferdinand Laeisz as a hat manufacturing company. He was quite successful and distributed his hats even ...

of the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

company

F. Laeisz F. Laeisz ( ; short form ''FL'') is a German shipping company with offices in Hamburg, Rostock, Bremerhaven and Grabow, Germany, as well as Japan and the Philippines. History The firm was established by Ferdinand Laeisz on 24 March 1824 as a ...

, it was one of the last generation of cargo-carrying iron-hulled sailing ships used in the

nitrate trade Sodium nitrate is the chemical compound with the formula . This alkali metal nitrate salt is also known as Chile saltpeter (large deposits of which were historically mined in Chile) to distinguish it from ordinary saltpeter, potassium nitrate. ...

and

wheat trade Grain Race or The Great Grain Race was the informal name for the annual windjammer sailing season generally from South Australia's grain ports on Spencer Gulf to Lizard Point, Cornwall on the southwesternmost coast of the United Kingdom, or to s ...

around

Cape Horn Cape Horn ( es, Cabo de Hornos, ) is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America (which are the Diego Ramírez ...

History

Nitrate trade

''Peking'' was launched in February 1911 and left

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

for her maiden voyage to Valparaiso in May of the same year. After the outbreak of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

she was interned at Valparaiso and remained in Chile for the duration of the war. Awarded to the

Kingdom of Italy The Kingdom of Italy ( it, Regno d'Italia) was a state that existed from 1861, when Victor Emmanuel II of Kingdom of Sardinia, Sardinia was proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, proclaimed King of Italy, until 1946, when civil discontent led to ...

as war reparations, she was sold back to her original owners, the Laeisz brothers, in January 1923. She remained in the nitrate trade until traffic through the

Panama Canal The Panama Canal ( es, Canal de Panamá, link=no) is an artificial waterway in Panama that connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean and divides North and South America. The canal cuts across the Isthmus of Panama and is a conduit ...

proved quicker and more economical.

''Arethusa II''

In 1932, she was sold for £6,250 to Shaftesbury Homes. She was first towed to

Greenhithe Greenhithe is a village in the Borough of Dartford in Kent, England, and the civil parish of Swanscombe and Greenhithe. It is located east of Dartford and west of Gravesend. Area In the past, Greenhithe's waterfront on the estuary of the ri ...

, renamed ''Arethusa II'' and moored alongside the existing ''Arethusa I''. In July 1933, she was moved to a new permanent mooring off

Upnor Lower Upnor and Upper Upnor are two small villages in Medway, Kent, England. They are in the parish of Frindsbury Extra on the western bank of the River Medway. Today the two villages are mainly residential and a centre for small craft moored o ...

on the

River Medway The River Medway is a river in South East England. It rises in the High Weald AONB, High Weald, East Sussex and flows through Tonbridge, Maidstone and the Medway conurbation in Kent, before emptying into the Thames Estuary near Sheerness, a to ...

, where she served as a children's home and training school. She was officially "opened" by Prince George on 25 July 1933. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

she served in the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

as HMS ''Pekin''. In 1964 she portrayed HMS Battledore in the movie Murder Ahoy .

Museum ship in New York

''Arethusa II'' was retired in 1974 and sold to Jack Aron as ''Peking'', for the

South Street Seaport The South Street Seaport is a historic area in the New York City borough of Manhattan, centered where Fulton Street meets the East River, and adjacent to the Financial District, in Lower Manhattan. The Seaport is a designated historic district, ...

Museum in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, where she remained for the next four decades. However, the Seaport NYC did not see ''Peking'' as part of its long-term operational plans, and was planning to send the vessel 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$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

100. ''Peking'' is intended to become part of the

German Port Museum The German Port Museum (''Deutsches Hafenmuseum'') is a nautical museum in Hamburg. The German Federal Parliament's budget committee approved initial funding of €94 million to rebuild it. Scope The museum displays the commercial and economic ...

(''Deutsches Hafenmuseum'') at ''Schuppen 52'' in Hamburg for which

€ The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone and unilaterally adopted by Kosovo and Montenegro. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists ...

120 million of federal funds would be provided. She was taken to Caddell Drydock,

Staten Island Staten Island ( ) is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located in the city's southwest portion, the borough is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull an ...

, on 7 September 2016, to spend the winter. On 14 July 2017 she was loaded on the deck of the semi-submersible

heavy-lift ship A heavy-lift ship is a vessel designed to move very large loads that cannot be handled by normal ships. They are of two types: *''Semi-submersible'' ships that take on water ballast to allow the load—usually another vessel—to be floated o ...

for transport across the Atlantic, at a cost of some €1 million, arriving at

Brunsbüttel Brunsbüttel () is a town in the district of Dithmarschen, in Schleswig-Holstein, northern Germany that lies at the mouth of the Elbe river, near the North Sea. It is the location of the western entrance to the Kiel Canal. History The earliest re ...

on 30 July 2017.

Refurbishment in Germany

On 2 August 2017 she was transferred to ''Peters Werft'', located at

Wewelsfleth Wewelsfleth is a municipality in the district of Steinburg, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after ...

, for a three-year refurbishment at a cost of €38 million.Sailing Ship veteran's three-year restoration
/ref> The restoration included review of

rigging Rigging comprises the system of ropes, cables and chains, which support a sailing ship or sail boat's masts—''standing rigging'', including shrouds and stays—and which adjust the position of the vessel's sails and spars to which they are ...

, double floor

steel Steel is an alloy made up of iron with added carbon to improve its strength and fracture resistance compared to other forms of iron. Many other elements may be present or added. Stainless steels that are corrosion- and oxidation-resistant ty ...

plates, dismounting and remount of all masts, docking in

dry dock A dry dock (sometimes drydock or dry-dock) is a narrow basin or vessel that can be flooded to allow a load to be floated in, then drained to allow that load to come to rest on a dry platform. Dry docks are used for the construction, maintenance, ...

, renewal of the steel structure, removal of the

cement A cement is a binder, a chemical substance used for construction that sets, hardens, and adheres to other materials to bind them together. Cement is seldom used on its own, but rather to bind sand and gravel ( aggregate) together. Cement mix ...

that filled the lower of the hull, painting, woodwork and overall refurbishment. The ship twice spent about two years in dry dock. ''Peking'' was refloated on 7 September 2018 with a primer-painted hull.

Teak Teak (''Tectona grandis'') is a tropical hardwood tree species in the family Lamiaceae. It is a large, deciduous tree that occurs in mixed hardwood forests. ''Tectona grandis'' has small, fragrant white flowers arranged in dense clusters (panicl ...

was reinstalled on deck. The ship was transferred on 7 September 2020 to the

.Peking in Hamburg
/ref>

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 ) *Johnson, Irving. '' Around Cape Horn'' (film) (

Mystic Seaport Mystic Seaport Museum or Mystic Seaport: The Museum of America and the Sea in Mystic, Connecticut is the largest maritime museum in the United States. It is notable for its collection of sailing ships and boats and for the re-creation of the craf ...

, 1985) (from original 16 mm footage shot by Irving Johnson, 1929)

External links

The History of Shaftesbury Homes and the Arethusa, giving details of the purchase of the Pekin/Peking
{{DEFAULTSORT:Peking Barques Windjammers Individual sailing vessels Tall ships of Germany Four-masted ships Ships built in Hamburg Merchant ships of Germany 1911 ships Training ships of the United Kingdom Museum ships in New York (state) Museum ships in Germany Also see YouTube video title
"Around Cape Horn (1929)"