 Chinese Junk Keying |
|
| Career | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Keying |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Junk |
| Tons burthen: | 800 tonnes |
| Length: | 160 ft (45 m) |
| Beam: | 35 ft (10.7 m) |
| Depth of hold: | 19 ft (5.8 m) |
| Propulsion: | Three-masted junk rig |
| Complement: | 20 cannons |
| Notes: | Chinese teak used for the construction |
The Junk Keying (Chinese: 耆英; pinyin: qíyīng, named after the Manchu official Qiying; the English name is based on Cantonese pronunciation) was a three-masted, 800-ton Foochow Chinese trading junk which sailed from China around the Cape of Good Hope to the United States and England between 1846 and 1848. She is of particular interest, since she testifies to the power of Chinese shipping and shipbuilding at the time of the beginning of industrialization in the West.
Keying had been purchased in August 1846 in secrecy by English businessmen, who braved a Chinese law prohibiting the sale of Chinese ships to foreigners. She was manned by 30 Chinese and 12 Englishmen, and commanded by the British captain Kellett during her travel.
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The Keying was the first ship from China to visit New York. She moored off the Battery on the southern tip of Manhattan in July 1847, and was received with great fanfare.
The Cantonese crew of Keying were understandably angry as they only signed on for an eight 'month voyage to Singapore and Batavia (now Jakarta). Twenty six of them left and at least some of them were 'exhibited' by P.T. Barnum on his version of Keying that he had built in Hoboken (he claimed he had it towed from China).The 26 crew that left Keying returned to Canton on board the Candace 6 October 1847. The crew of the hoax 'Keying' were described by the Brooklyn Eagle as one third white and two thirds negroes or mulatoes so probably no Chinese from the real Keying were ever on the P.T. Barnum hoax.
She stayed several months in New York, and was visited by 4,000 tourists a day, who were paying 25 cents to board the ship and observe its design and crew.
Keying also moored in Boston on November 18 1847, by the Charles River Bridge, according to the Boston Evening Transcript of 1847. She was visited by many people, with as many as four to five thousand on Thanksgiving Day.
The Junk next sailed to England. A storm, occurring on 28 February, wrecked her two boats, ripped the foresail, and disabled the hardwood ironbound rudder, which was hung in the Chinese manner without gudgeons or pintles. During the repair of the rudder the second mate drowned.
The junk was fast, sailing between Boston and England in 21 days (land to land), a fast time even for a steam packet of the period:
The Junk visited England on March 1848, and a medal was made in honour of her arrival. The obverse of the medal gives the following account:
The ship was praised by the British as excellent in seaworthiness, and practically superior to their own:
A multitude visited the ship, including Queen Victoria and various members of the Royal family.
The Illustrated London News of 29 July 1848 described the visits to the Keying as follows:
Also in The Times:
The Keying was towed from London to the river Mersey by the steam tug Shannon, arriving 14 May 1853, anchored off Rock Ferry on the Cheshire shore. On 29 September 1853 the junk was preparing to leave for foreign ports in three weeks. It was dismantled "for research" by Redhead, Harling and Brown.
"The Chinese junk once a most popular attractive exhibition, is now rotting neglected and uncared for on the shore at Tranmere Ferry opposite Liverpool" from Plymouth and Devonport weekly journal, Thursday, 6 December 1855.
Junk Keying may not have been quite the first Chinese sailship to round the Cape of Good Hope, since the Venetian monk and cartographer Fra Mauro describes in his 1457 Fra Mauro map the travels of a huge "ship or junk from India" 2,000 miles (3,000 km) into the Atlantic Ocean around 1420 (Original Italian "una naue ouer çoncho de India", lit. "A ship or junk of India"). It is unclear though which part of Asia this expression would refer to, as "India" was a general descriptor for Asia at that time. If it was a Chinese junk, then depending on what credence one places on the theories about the voyages of the ships of Admiral Zheng He's squadrons, then that may be one explanation. Piero Falchetta in his 2006 Fra Mauro World Map describes the passage as "The important note which in all probability refers to the voyages of Zheng Ho".[1] Given the penetration of Arab mariners down the east coast of Africa, this might also be a voyaging vessel from the Indian Ocean trading 'circuit'.
A large-scale model of Junk Keying is visible since September 2005 in the new Hong Kong Maritime Museum, in Stanley, Hong Kong. The model is thought by some to be incorrect however: the shape of the hull being thought to be wrong because it lacks the great curvature of the original vessel which is clearly and consistently shown in some of the many illustrations of the junk of the time. However, as the museum's exhibit shows with its use of the contemporary Currier print made during the Keying's visit to the USA, the exaggerations of other renditions are probably a function of many western artists' inability to 'see' an unusually shaped hull, particularly the high 'wings' either side of the bow, typical of the Fuzhou style the ship is said to have been built in, and the similarly elevated bulwarks of the poop deck. The actual sheerline of Fuzhou junks is far from exaggerated. Much of the confusion with respect to the Keying arises from the failure of western measurements of the heights of bow and stern above the waterline to indicate whether what was being measured were the tops of 'wings' and 'poop', or of the weather deck at bow and stern. The exaggerated measurements in most contemporary reports suggest it was the former, not the latter.
The Hong Kong Maritime Museum model was based on contemporary reports and images allied to a more comprehensive analysis of traditional Fuzhou junk lines. The result unquestionably more accurately fits the accounts of the Keying's sea-keeping qualities than could have been the case had it in fact have had the bizarrely exaggerated curvatures shown in the contemporary prints referred to, a curvature otherwise unknown in similar vessels for the obvious reason that the acutely distorted waterlines that would result when heeled would have rendered the vessel unmanageable.
   | Chinese sea travels (German) - Von der Flußdschunke zu den Schatzschiffen |
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