40°42′19″N 74°00′11″W / 40.70528°N 74.00306°W / 40.70528; -74.00306

The Peking was docked at the South Street Seaport in New York City, where she acted as a maritime museum
History
German Empire
Name	Peking
Owner	F. Laeisz
Route	Europe–Chile
Builder	Blohm & Voss, Steinwerder, Hamburg
Yard number	205[1]
Launched	25 February 1911[1]
Completed	May 1911[1]
Out of service	1920
Notes	Interned at Valparaiso 1914-1920,[1] then to Italy as war reparations
Kingdom of Italy
In service	1920
Out of service	1923
Weimar Republic
Name	Peking
Operator	F. Laeisz
Route	Europe–Chile
Acquired	1923
Out of service	1932
United Kingdom
Name	Arethusa
Owner	Shaftesbury Homes
In service	1932-1940, 1945-1975
Out of service	1975
Homeport	Upnor, Medway
United Kingdom
Name	HMS Pekin
Operator	Royal Navy
In service	1940-1945
United States
Name	Peking
Owner	South Street Seaport Museum
Acquired	1975
Out of service	2017
Homeport	New York City
Status	Museum ship
Germany
Name	Peking
Owner	Museum Maritim Hamburg
Acquired	2017
Homeport	Hamburg
Status	Museum ship, under restoration
General characteristics
Class and 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 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.

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.^[2] It made this trip around the cape to Chile 34 times.

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 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.

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 was still moored in 2016. 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. ^[3]

In November 2015 the 'Maritim Foundation' purchased the ship for US $100, to be a feature at the new planned, German Port Museum at the Schuppen 52 Pier, in Hamburg, for which €120 million was sponsored by Federal German Government in Berlin.^[4][3][5] She was taken to Caddell Dry Dock, Staten Island, on September 7, 2016, to spend the winter.^[6] On July 17, 2017, she was docked, and two days later, she was transported, at a cost of some €1 million, in the hold of the semi-submersible heavy-lift ship Combi Dock III across the Atlantic, arriving on July 30, 2017 at Brunsbüttel. On August 2, 2017, she was transferred to Peters werft at Wewelsfleth for 3 years restoration at a cost of €26 million. ^[4]

New rigging, new double floor

All the masts were dismounted because they are simply too rotten. Then the ship was docked and the steel structure is to be renewed. Among other things, the lower three and a half meters of the Hull would have to be separated and a new double floor would be installed. This is about a year and a half to dry dock. Afterwards the ship comes out again from the dock, then the Teak comes on it and it goes to Hamburg. There might also be opportunity to make her sail again.^[7]

• • "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
  • James Craig
  • Elissa
  • Sigyn, the last wooden barque in original configuration

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)

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

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