Favourite ships, well, perhaps not in the complete sense: one, the dear old Cutty Sark, isn’t actually a ship any more.
The other is an imprint within my childhood memories of life on the River Medway, the Arethusa, or as she is known now, the Peking, a German built nitrates carrier, before she became TS Arethusa owned by Shaftesbury Homes.
The May Flower and Arethusa along the Upnor waterfront in 1951. (Ardley family collection)
The 1911 built Peking ended her trading days in 1933 when purchased and refitted for her school ship duties. Thereafter her only sailings were to a dry dock, usually in Chatham Dockyard, every now and then. In 1975, the charity deemed the ship unfit for further use … however, she was bought by the South St Seaport Museum. They ‘dished’ her up and re-rigged her as she would have been in her trading days.
From the ‘Lovely Old Ships’ web site – probably a skyphotos print – when the ship was at Upnor.
Unfortunately the museum’s base is to be redeveloped and the vessel hold has been sold or moved elsewhere. The Peking is one of the vessels to go. Her future has looked bleak, but a saviour has appeared. The ship is to be taken back to Germany and refurbished in a regeneration of the Hamburg (old) waterfront where the ship was built.
It isn’t likely that she will sail again, but at least she’ll be afloat and be maintained as a ship…
Unlike my ‘old’ friend the Cutty Sark. I walked past this building recently, in the midst of the Greenwich waterfront, and all I saw was a glass bubble with a set of towering sticks and string poking from the top. It looked like something, a ship, probably, that had partially escaped its bottle!
Now, recently I heard of some interesting news: there is a group wanting to build a sailing replica of the Cutty Sark, this is the Cutty Sark 2Sail Foundation.
I have copied off their mission statement…
Mission
- To create interest and educate the public in the traditional skills of composite/wooden shipbuilding. And preserve our maritime heritage for future generations by building a replica of the clipper “Cutty Sark” as a sea going vessel.
- To promote education in the art of operating and maintaining ships under sail by providing training in seamanship to young people of all nations.
- To promote sail-powered shipping as an environmentally friendly alternative form of transport.
It all sounds something for the good.
The cost, currently, Between 19 to 24 million GBP, now that is less than the pounds sterling spent on that old building, which will need redoing in the future…
Image from Cutty Sark 2Sail Foundation…
You can look at their web site for more information.
One can only wish them well. The ‘leader’ has already had built two replicas currently sailing the seas, these are the schooner Peter and the frigate Shtandart.