This morning at about 8:30am, depending on weather conditions related to tropical storm Hermine, the barque Peking will push off from South Street Seaport for one last time to begin her final trip home to the land of her birth, Hamburg Germany.
Peking will ease out into the slack tide of the East River and, assisted by a few tugs and many well-wishers, will make her way slowly across New York Harbor and over to Caddell’s Drydock on the Kill van Kull, the waterway between Staten Island and Bayonne. There, she will undergo preparations for her journey across the Atlantic scheduled for sometime in the Spring on 2017.
Built in Hamburg in 1911, Peking is one of the famous “Flying P Liners” of F. Laeisz Lines. Employed in the nitrate trade, Peking made voyages from Europe to the west coast of South America with general cargo and returned filled with guano for use in the making of fertilizer and explosives. Peking 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. Peking first arrived in New York in 1974.
“The gift of Peking to Hamburg, where they’ve got 30 million euros to restore her, is good for our Museum; it will allow us to focus our growing resources on a leaner fleet, the centerpiece of which will be the mighty three-masted ship Wavertree, which will shortly return from a massive restoration project. It’s also good for Hamburg; they’ll have a restored ship they can be proud of. She was built in Hamburg and sailed from there. She belongs on the Hamburg waterfront. And it’s good for Peking; she’ll have the resources and the attention she deserves” said Captain Jonathan Boulware, Executive Director of the South Street Seaport Museum.
According to Captain Boulware, “just as Peking is the right ship for Hamburg, Wavertree is the right ship for New York. She’s the very type of ship that built our city. The story of the port of New York is replete with ships of the same type and size as Wavertree–humble, unassuming ships that for a century plied the world’s oceans driving the trade, immigration, and cultural exchange that made New York the first modern world city.”
Please note that Peking’s departure is subject to weather conditions and may be delayed if adverse conditions exist. Monitor the Seaport Museum on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/southstreetseaportmuseum and on Twitter @SeaportMuseum