While I am very pleased that the old PEKING has returned to her native Germany, I am still a bit sore that she was removed from my "back yard" at Upnor, on the River Medway, to New York, USA, a place with which, as far I know, she had no connection with in her working life.
From 1946 until 1975 she was a local landmark as the training ship ARETHUSA.
The history of the PEKING/ARETHUSA reinforces my disappointment with the powers-that-be in the UK in that they have abjectly failed to celebrate our so-called great maritime heritage with the preservationn of any really-significant British large merchant ship design such as a Fort, Park, Liberty Blue-Flue/Glen or SD14, not to mention any of the great pasesnger liners that have emerged from British shipyards