Kankō Maru
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 The Kankō Maru, Japan's first steam warship, 1855. |
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| Career |  |
|---|---|
| Builder: | The Netherlands |
| Built: | 1852 |
| Commissioned: | 1853 |
| Given to Japan: | 1855 |
| Decommissioned: | 1876 |
| Fate: | Wrecked 1871 |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 400 t |
| Length: | 66 m overall |
| Beam: | ? |
| Draught: | ? |
| Propulsion: | 3-masted sail 150 hp steam engine |
| Fuel: | Coal |
| Speed: | ? |
| Complement: | ? |
| Armament: | 6 cannons |
The Kankō Maru (観光丸 Kankōmaru?) was Japan's first steam warship.
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[edit] History
Following the forced opening of Japan by Commodore Matthew Perry in 1854, Japan decided to order modern ships from the Dutch, their sole Western trading partners in the previous 200 years of Seclusion, or "Sakoku". The ships were ordered to Donker Curtius, head of the Dutch East India Company in Japan. Since time was needed to import the ships, Curtius asked for one of their warships in the East Indies to be presented to the Japanese.
The Dutch warship named "Soembing" (スームビング?), the name of an Indonesian volcano, was presented to the government of the Shogun by the Dutch King, Willem III in 1855. She was renamed "Kankō Maru" (観光丸?), after a line in the I Ching: Kankoku shi kō (觀國之光 to view the light of the country?).
The ship was affected as a training ship to the newly formed Nagasaki Naval Training Center, under the Director Nagai Naoyuki (永井尚志). She was then transferred to the new Naval Training Center in Edo in April 1857, with a Japanese-only crew of 103 students, and remained there until 1876.
[edit] Replica
A faithful replica of the original Kankō Maru was ordered and built in the Netherlands in 1987. She was used as a tourism ship in the "Huis Ten Bosch" theme park in Sasebo, Nagasaki, and has been sailing along the coast of Japan since.
[edit] Spaceship project
Kankoh-maru is also the name of a Japanese spaceship project for space tourism.
