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Re-rigging the Peking

The steel four-masted bark PEKING was launched in 1911 for the shipping firm of Ferdinand Laeisz. With her sister ship, PASSAT, PEKING joined a standardized fleet of four-masted barks which the Germans believed to be the most effective type of ship for use in the South American nitrate trade. Immensely strong and practical, these freighters were over three houndred feet long and could carry five thousand tons of cargo under sail. Interned at Valpariso, Chile, during the First World War, she was consigned to Italy as part of war reparations and eventually bought back by her original owners in 1923. Sold to the Shaftsbury Homes in England in 1932, she was renamed ARETHUSA and served as a stationary training ship in the river Thames. Acquired for the South St. seaport Museum by Jack Aron and towed across the Atlantic by the Dutch salvage tug, UTRECHT, she began her new life as an exhibit in 1976. As part of the continuing restoration, the South St. Seaport Museum began the formidable job of replacing the steel wire that makes up the standing rigging in November 1984.

The working of metal into wire is an age old skill. Gold and bronze wire for jewelry and decoration was found among the excavations of ancient Egypt and Pompeii. By the beginning of the 19th century the availability of good quality malleable wrought iron began the wire rope industry in Europe. For the rugged conditions found in deep mines, German engineers perfected wire drawing and mechanical spinning, and developed the modern spiral stranded wire rope in 1831. The foremost wire rope manufacturers during this time were Andrew Smith, of England, and Wilhelm Albert, of Germany. In1835 Andrew Smith patented wire rope rigging for ships which he advertised as "Metal Cordage". He gave clear examples of the increased strength and weight saving advantages of iron over hemp rigging. The English schooner MARSHALL introduced iron rigging when she was built in 1836. The much larger experimental iron ship, JOHN GARROW, constructed for the cotton trade between the American South and Liverpool, was the first deepwater vessel to be rigged with Andrew Smith’s "Metal Cordage" in 1840.

The wire rope industry did not yet exist in America. Robert Townsend and Samuel Wickersham, of Pittsburgh, were in business as wire drawers. Their trade was limited to making screens for sieves and combs for carding wool and cotton.

Inspired by his professor during his student days in Berlin, John A. Roebling, civil engineer of Brooklyn Bridge fame, established the first successful wire rope manufacturing company in America. In the 1850’s, seeking to expand the use of his product, he strenuously tried to have the U.S. Navy rig its new steam frigates, MINNESOTA and MERRIMACK, with his wire rope. The Navy, traditionally conservative, had little interest in substituting wire for hemp rigging, but by 1865 tests showed the superiority of wire rigging. By the next decade every ship in the Navy was rigged with Roebling wire. The wire industry was advancing and by 1876 steel replaced iron as the material of choice in the production of wire rope.

As iron and steel replaced hemp rigging, sailing ships bacame larger and could carry more masts and sails. The strength and stability of steel wire also reduced the frequency of damage to ships by dismasting and allowed windjammers to compete against power-driven vessels.

The standing rigging of the bark PEKING, which includes shrouds, backstays and forestays, form a complex system of steel cables that support the lofty fore, main, mizzen and jigger masts. After 73 years her standing rigging was weak and corroded with rust. The old wires were cut away using oxy-acetylene torches and sent down in stages so that the masts always remained supported. Deteriorated sections of mast were repaired by doubling and welding with rolled steel plate. We made up special chain wrenches and with large heating torches were able to free up rigging screws and shackles that were locked with rust. All this hardware received extensive repair and renovation. To guard against the elements we prepared about half of the fifteen thousand fet of wire by worming (worming fills in the grooves formed by the strands of cable with tarred marlin twine), parceling (a wrapping of tarred canvas) and serving (an additional layer of marlin tightly spun over the parceling with a grooved wooded mallet). We chose to serve the wire with a synthetic polypropylene rope, immune to the effects of sunlight and needing less maintenance, instead of natural fiber marlin. With our small crew of one to three men working part time on this job, any part of the work that could be mechanized would be helpful. Rather than having to serve thousands of feet of wire by hand, the Museum’s riggers built a useful serving machine which eliminated many hours of tedious manual labor.

Once prepared, the new wire was sent aloft using an electric powered winch, and the hefty cables wrestled into position with chain hoists and steel bars. The lower ends were fed around steel thimbles and the cable bound to itself with seizing wire. This heavy assembly is connected with a rigging screw that tensions the wire to the ship’s hull. After a "gang" of rigging is set up oak battens are lashed to the shrouds to provide a ladder for climbing aloft.

We were working with 6-by-19 galvanized improved plow steel wire rope. This cable is composed of six strands each with nineteen individual wires, galvanized for protection. The largest steel wires are about the size of an average wrist with the longest wires weighing over half a ton.. Plow steel is a wire that has unusual toughness and resistance to abrasion and is the decendent of English wire rope used in steam powered plows in the 1800’s.

The PEKING rigging job is the largest of its type attempted by a maritime museum in the United States. The PEKING, resting at her South St. berth, represents the final expression of commercial sail. With patient and deliberate effort an important part of her character as a sailing ship has been restored.

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