Keying (ship)


Keying 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 Britain between 1846 and 1848.

History and voyages

Keying had been purchased in August 1846 in secrecy by British businessmen in Hong Kong, defying a Chinese law prohibiting the sale of Chinese ships to foreigners. She was renamed after the Manchu official Keying. Keying was manned by 12 British and 30 Chinese sailors. She was commanded by Captain Charles Alfred Kellett, also British.

The Crew

Keying left Hong Kong in December 1846. Before her departure she was visited by Sir John Davis, the Governor of Hong Kong; Admiral Sir Thomas Cochrane, and officers of the fleet, the Commander-in-Chief and most of the principal residents of the Colony.

Cape of Good Hope and St Helena

She rounded the Cape of Good Hope in March 1847, 114 days out, having been delayed by strong westerly gales, and a severe hurricane.
After 17 days at sea she anchored at St Helena in April 1847.

New York

She remained at St Helena for some time before taking course to Sandy Hooks and then arriving in New York City in July 1847. The Keying was the first ship from China to visit New York. She moored off the Battery on the southern tip of Manhattan and was received with great fanfare. No less than seven thousand visitors went on board of her every day. She remained in New York for several months. The Chinese crew of Keying were understandably angry as they had signed on only for an eight-month voyage to Singapore and Batavia. Twenty-six of them left Keying and returned to Canton on board the Candace, which sailed 6 October 1847.
P. T. Barnum had a copy of Keying built in Hoboken, and exhibited it with a crew which may have included some of the Keying Chinese. However the Brooklyn Eagle described Barnum's crew as "one third white and two thirds negroes or mulattoes", so probably no real Keying crew were present.

Boston

Keying also moored in Boston on 18 November 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.

British visit

Keying next sailed on 17 February 1948 for Britain. A storm 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.
Keying was fast, as was noted by the press:
Keying reached Britain in March 1848, and a medal was made in honor of her arrival. The obverse of the medal gives the following account:
Keying was praised by the British as excellent in seaworthiness, and practically superior to their own:
She lay in the Thames at Blackwall. A multitude visited the ship, including Queen Victoria and other members of the Royal family.
The Illustrated London News of 29 July 1848 described the visits to the Keying as follows:
The Times also reported Keying's visit:

Sale and Final Fate

The Keying was sold to Messrs Crippin & Forster of Rock Ferry, Cheshire and towed from London to the river Mersey by the steam tug Shannon, arriving 14 May 1853. It was moored at the Rock Ferry slipway for public exhibition. On 29 September 1853, Keying was preparing to leave for foreign ports in three weeks. But instead it was dismantled "for research" at the shipyard of Redhead, Harling, and Brown.
The Plymouth and Devonport weekly journal for Thursday, 6 December 1855 reported

Commemoration

A large-scale model of the Keying is on display at the Hong Kong Maritime Museum, at Central Ferry Pier 8. This model was based on contemporary reports and images allied to a comprehensive analysis of traditional Fuzhou junk lines. The model was constructed on a 1 to 12 scale. The model was also intentionally aged to look like a vessel that had seen service prior to is famous journey.
The model is thought by some to be incorrect: the shape of the hull lacks the great curvature which is clearly and consistently shown in some of the many contemporary illustrations of the original vessel. However, the Currier print made at the time does not show this. The exaggerations of other renditions probably resulted from western artists' being confused by the unfamiliar style of Keyings hull, particularly the high 'wings' either side of the bow, typical of the Fuzhou style, and the similarly elevated bulwarks of the poop deck.
The actual sheerline of Fuzhou junks is not so extreme. Much of the confusion with respect to the Keying may come from reported bow and stern heights above the waterline that may have been for the tops of 'wings' and 'poop', not of the weather deck at bow and stern. The exaggerated measurements in most contemporary reports suggest it was the former, not the latter.
The Museum model unquestionably fits the accounts of Keyings sea-keeping qualities better than a model with the bizarrely exaggerated curvatures shown in other contemporary illustrations. Such curvature was unknown in similar vessels: the acutely distorted waterlines that would result when heeled would have rendered the vessel unmanageable.
These large trading junks moored off the waterfront of Guangzhou towards the end of the 19th century would have been broadly similar to the Keying and give us a better idea of how she may really have appeared than the contemporary images of her by western artists.