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Peking
Schleswig-Holstein, Wewelsfleth, Peters Werft und Peking NIK 0987.jpg
Peking
History
 German Empire
Name Peking
Owner F. Laeisz
Route EuropeChile
Builder Blohm & Voss, Steinwerder, Hamburg
Yard number 205
Launched 25 February 1911
Completed May 1911
Out of service 1920
Notes Interned at Valparaiso 1914-1920, then to Italy as war reparations
 Kingdom of Italy
In service 1920
Out of service 1923
 Weimar Republic
Name Peking
Operator F. Laeisz
Route EuropeChile
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 German Port Museum
Acquired 2017
In service 2020
Homeport Hamburg
Status Museum ship
Notes Display
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

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 cargo-carrying iron-hulled sailing ships used in the nitrate trade and wheat trade around Cape Horn.

History

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 the Kingdom of Italy as war reparation 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 proved quicker and more economical.

Arethusa II

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 Prince George on 25 July 1933. During World War II she served in the Royal Navy as HMS Pekin.

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 Peking as part of its long-term operational plans, and was planning to send 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$ 100. Peking is intended to become part of the German Port Museum (Deutsches Hafenmuseum) at Schuppen 52 in Hamburg for which 120 million of federal funds would be 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 €1 million, on the deck 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 three-year refurbishment at a cost of € 38 million. The restoration included review of rigging, double floor steel plates, dismounting and remount of all masts, docking in dry-dock, renewal of the steel structure, removal of the cement that filled the lower three and a half metres (11 ft) of the hull, painting, wood work and overall refurbishment. The ship spent two times about two years in dry dock. Peking was refloated on September 7, 2018 with Primer paint Hull. Teak was reinstalled on deck. The ship was transferred on September 7, 2020 to the German Port Museum.

Also see YouTube video titled "Around Cape Horn (1929)"

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