City clipper bow-ing out
Sea ya! This weekend is your last chance to walk the plank on the Peking, The Post has learned.
The storied, black-andwhite ship, which has towered above the South Street Seaport since 1974, will be hauled back to her birthplace in Hamburg, Germany, next spring.
She’ll be replaced by the Wavertree, another tall ship, but with more New York history than the Peking.
The struggling South Street Seaport Museum began negotiations with the German government in 2012 to give the Peking back as a gift. Officials just needed the cash to get her across the Atlantic.
Germany agreed to invest more than $30 million dollars into the voyage home to the Stiftung Hamburg Maritim, the maritime museum of Hamburg.
Museum Executive Director Jonathan Boulware said the decision to give the Peking back to Germany is in the best interest of the museum and the ship.
“The gift of [the] Peking to Hamburg, where they’ve got [$33 million] to restore her, is good for our museum,” Boulware said.
“It’s also good for Hamburg . . . She was built in Hamburg and sailed from there. She belongs on the Hamburg waterfront. And it’s good for [the] Peking; she’ll have the resources and the attention she deserves.”
The Peking arrived in New York at age 63, after plying the waters between South America and Europe as a merchant vessel.
In her seafaring years, she fought in World War I, was used as a training ship and later became a school for boys in England. The Peking eventually wore out her usefulness and was headed to the scrap yard when a wealthy navy lieutenant recused her and brought her to South Street.
The Peking’s last tour will be Sunday at 4:15 p.m. She’ll be moved to a dry dock off Staten Island in September before her European voyage
next spring.