Keying

Type

Junk

Period

19th Century

Nation

China

Overview: Keying was a three-masted, roughly 800-ton Fuzhou trading junk that became famous as one of the first Chinese sailing vessels to make a transoceanic voyage to the Western world, visiting both the United States and Great Britain between 1846 and 1848. She was purchased secretly in Hong Kong in 1846 by British businessmen, technically in defiance of a Chinese law against selling junks to foreigners, and renamed after the Manchu official Keying (Qiying) who had negotiated the treaty ceding Hong Kong to Britain. Specifications: Contemporary accounts give her length as about 160 feet, depth of hold around 12 feet, and burden of roughly 800 tons by Chinese measurement, with a mainmast about 85 feet tall from the deck and a foremast around 75 feet. She was built of teak, carried a huge matting mainsail reportedly spreading some 11,000 square feet, and had an arched main deck with a raised quarter-deck, two poops, and a raised forecastle typical of ocean-going Chinese junk construction. She was already about a century old at the time of her famous voyage. Service History: Keying departed Hong Kong on 6 December 1846 under a mixed crew of 12 British and about 30 Cantonese sailors, commanded by Captain Charles Alfred Kellett, rounding the Cape of Good Hope and calling at St Helena before an unplanned diversion brought her into New York Harbor in July 1847, where thousands of paying visitors toured the ship. Disputes over wages led many of her Chinese crew to leave before she finally continued on to London, arriving in March 1848, where she was exhibited on the River Thames as a curiosity, including during the Great Exhibition period, until being auctioned off in 1853 and towed to Liverpool to be broken up. Notable Facts: Keying reached Britain in March 1848, and a medal was made in honor of her arrival, describing her as the first junk that ever rounded the Cape of Good Hope, or appeared in British waters. The showman P. T. Barnum capitalized on her fame by having a replica junk built in Hoboken, New Jersey, which he exhibited separately from the genuine vessel. Despite Western skepticism at the time (including a notably dismissive account by Charles Dickens), her successful ocean crossing demonstrated the seaworthiness of traditional junk design to European observers.