In all her former glory, the restored Flying P Liner Peking has returned to her home port of Hamburg. Four years ago, we posted about the Peking‘s departure from New York’s South Street Seaport. During the summer of 2017, she was carried across the Atlantic on a heavy lift ship and underwent a three-year restoration at Peters Werft shipyard in Wewelsfleth, Germany.
This week, the Peking was towed back to Hamburg, greeted by a flotilla of supporters and throngs of wellwishers along the riverbanks. The ship will be the centerpiece of a new German Port Museum, part of Historic Museums Hamburg, scheduled to be completed by 2025. In the meantime, the Peking is alongside her provisional berth on the Bremen Quay.
“With the Peking, Hamburg is gaining a new landmark,” Hamburg Mayor Peter Tschenscher said. “During a history of more than 100 years, the Peking rounded Cape Horn 34 times, survived two world wars, and spent more than 40 years as a museum ship on a Manhattan pier.” The Hamburg Historical Museums Foundation now aims to fit out the ship over the months ahead before moving it to its final berth along the Holthusen Quay where it will serve as a museum ship. Eighty-eight years after the Peking sailed from the Port of Hamburg for the last time, it is now providing a view of the planned German Port Museum. The tall ship is expected to be ready to accept visitors in the summer of 2021. Until then, the ship can be viewed from the quayside during Hamburg Port Museum’s opening hours.
Peking was built in 1911 at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg for the German shipowner, F. Laeisz, one of the famous Flying P Liners, which were among the last of the great sailing ships to round Cape Horn carrying cargo. Peking made voyages from Europe to the west coast of South America with general cargo and returned filled with nitrates for use in the making of fertilizer and explosives. The windjammer was made famous by the Irving Johnson film Around Cape Horn which documented her 1929 passage around the southern tip of South America in hurricane conditions. After 1933, the Peking served as the school ship, Arethusa II, mooring on the River Medway in Great Britain. She was purchased as a museum ship by the South Street Seaport Museum in 1975.
When the then Arethusa which had been moored at Lower Upnor on the River Medway for many years left for the USA they just dropped her mooring warps into the river. Some time later the Upnor Sailing Club had to build a longer access pontoon to reach mean low water because the lack of the large ship was changing the geography of the river bed. A pile driving barge was contracted to lay a line of piles for our floating pontoons and all was going well until one of the furthest from the bank piles would not drive in. It was eventually discovered after much ‘mudlarking’ that the pile was positioned right over one of the dropped steel hawsers and was just bouncing back with each punch. Arethusa was gone but not forgotten!
What a joyous occasion, and what a wonderful sequence of photos. If you follow the thread you can find more about PEKING and the Flying P Line. On another topic, I hope to see photos of ELBE V x WANDERBIRD x ELBE V Back soon as well.
Speaking for Cape Horners of the past era they would be proud of what the Germans have achieved if only we British could see beyond our noses bow to our great maritime history and do the same with FALLS OF CLYDE. It looks very much like the restoration and imaginative display that will no doubt accompany the big barque will inspire at least the Germans who are rightly proud seafarers.
The South Street Seaport has also done a great job with the restoration of the Wavertree, which was the Arethusa.
@Rick I think you are mistaken, The Arethusa was, and now again is the Peking and was sadly neglected in America. Nothing to do with the Wavertree?
You are right. I am entirely wrong. The Peking was the Arethusa II between 1933 and 1974. The two windjammers were moored next to each other at South Street for s many years, I am getting them confused. Thanks for the catch.
Thanks,Rick. I have read your offerings for many years. Peace to all. Greetings from Maine.
The British were awarded one of the 5 sisters at the end of the Second World War. It was used as an ammunition storage bunker and then sunk as a target ship. A great many folks were upset by that. I am disappointed for NY that they lost a magnificent piece of history but I know that Hamburg will give her the attention she deserves. My wife and I were married on her in 1998.