The Flying P-Liners were the sailing ships of the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

shipping company F. Laeisz of

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

History

The company was founded in 1824 by Ferdinand Laeisz as a hat manufacturing company. He was quite successful and distributed his hats even in

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

. In 1839, he had the three-masted wooden

brig A brig is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: two masts which are both square rig, square-rigged. Brigs originated in the second half of the 18th century and were a common type of smaller merchant vessel or warship from then until the l ...

''Carl'' (named after his son) built and entered the shipping business, but lack of success made him sell the ship a short five years later. Ferdinand's son Carl Laeisz entered the business in 1852. It was he who turned the F. Laeisz company into a shipping business. In 1857, they ordered a

barque A barque, barc, or bark is a type of sailing ship, sailing vessel with three or more mast (sailing), masts of which the fore mast, mainmast, and any additional masts are Square rig, rigged square, and only the aftmost mast (mizzen in three-maste ...

which they named ''Pudel'' (which was the nickname of Carl's wife Sophie), and from the mid-1880s on, all their ships had names starting with "P" and they became known as "the P-line". The last ship without a "P-name" was the wooden barque ''Henriette Behn'' which was stranded on the Mexican coast in 1885. Krusenstern horiz

The Laeisz company specialized in the

nitrate Nitrate is a polyatomic ion with the chemical formula . salt (chemistry), Salts containing this ion are called nitrates. Nitrates are common components of fertilizers and explosives. Almost all inorganic nitrates are solubility, soluble in wa ...

trade. Their ships were built for speed, and they soon acquired an excellent reputation for timeliness and reliability, which gave rise to the nickname "the Flying P-Line". The five-masted

made the voyage from

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

around

Cape Horn Cape Horn (, ) is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America (which is Águila Islet), Cape Horn marks the nor ...

in 1904 in just 57 days, a record at the time. The Laeisz company had some of the largest sailing ships ever built. They experimented with

steel Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon that demonstrates improved mechanical properties compared to the pure form of iron. Due to steel's high Young's modulus, elastic modulus, Yield (engineering), yield strength, Fracture, fracture strength a ...

-hulled five-masters, first the barque ''Potosi'' (1895) and in 1902 the huge

full-rigged ship A full-rigged ship or fully rigged ship is a sailing ship, sailing vessel with a sail plan of three or more mast (sailing), masts, all of them square rig, square-rigged. Such a vessel is said to have a ship rig or be ship-rigged, with each mas ...

with a length of , , and over . She could sail faster than and her best 24-hour distance was 392 sm in 1908 on her voyage to

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. However, these ships turned out to be too big: their crews did not like them, and it became increasingly difficult to achieve a satisfactory utilization on the outbound leg from Europe to Chile. The later ships, such as or , returned to being smaller four-masted barques. During

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, many of Laeisz' ships were blocked in Chilean ports and had to be handed over as

war reparations War reparations are compensation payments made after a war by one side to the other. They are intended to cover damage or injury inflicted during a war. War reparations can take the form of hard currency, precious metals, natural resources, in ...

. However, the Laeisz company was able to re-acquire many ships after the war and put them into service again. Towards the end of the 1920s, the company began pulling out of the nitrate trade and increasingly started transporting other goods, e.g.

banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large treelike herbaceous flowering plants in the genus '' Musa''. In some countries, cooking bananas are called plantains, distinguishing the ...

s. They also sold some of their older ships, for instance to

Gustav Erikson Gustaf Adolf Mauritz Erikson (1872 in Lemland – 1947 in Mariehamn) was a ship-owner from the Åland islands. He was famous for the fleet of windjammers he operated to the end of his life, mainly on the grain trade from Australia to Europe. E ...

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who already had acquired the former Norddeutscher Lloyd-ship . The last sailing ship ordered by the Laeisz company was in 1926. Subsequently, the Laeisz company only ordered

steamship A steamship, often referred to as a steamer, is a type of steam-powered vessel, typically ocean-faring and seaworthy, that is propelled by one or more steam engines that typically move (turn) propellers or paddlewheels. The first steamships ...

Ships

Four of the Flying P-Liners still exist today: * is a

museum ship A museum ship, also called a memorial ship, is a ship that has been preserved and converted into a museum open to the public for educational or memorial purposes. Some are also used for training and recruitment purposes, mostly for the small numb ...

Mariehamn Mariehamn ( , ; ; ) is the capital of Åland, an autonomous territory under Finnish sovereignty. Mariehamn is the seat of the Government and Parliament of Åland, and 40% of the population of Åland live in the city. It is mostly surrounded b ...

, Finland. * ''

Peking Beijing, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's most populous national capital city as well as China's second largest city by urban area after Shanghai. It is l ...

'' is a museum ship in

, Germany. * '' Passat'' is a museum ship in

Lübeck Lübeck (; or ; Latin: ), officially the Hanseatic League, Hanseatic City of Lübeck (), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 220,000 inhabitants, it is the second-largest city on the German Baltic Sea, Baltic coast and the second-larg ...

's sea resort

Travemünde Travemünde () is a borough of Lübeck, Germany, located at the mouth of the river Trave in Bay of Lübeck, Lübeck Bay. It began life as a fortress built by Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, in the 12th century to guard the mouth of the Trave, an ...

, Germany. * ''

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'' is the only ship still active: she is today a

school ship A training ship is a ship used to train students as sailors. The term is mostly used to describe ships employed by navies to train future officers. Essentially there are two types: those used for training at sea and old Hulk (ship type), hulks us ...

and sails as under a

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n flag. Other famous Flying P-Liners were a five-masted barque and a five-masted full-rigged ship (both built by Joh. C. Tecklenborg ship yard in

Geestemünde Bremerhaven (; ) is a city on the east bank of the Weser estuary in northern Germany. It forms an exclave of the Bremen (state), city-state of Bremen. The Geeste (river), River Geeste flows through the city before emptying into the Weser. Brem ...

) * '' Potosi'', (barque) built 1895, sold 1923, caught fire and sunk off Argentina in 1925 * '' Preussen II'', (full-rigged ship) built 1902, beached in 1910 after being rammed by a steamer and the four-masted barques * , built 1905, capsized and sunk in 1957, 80 died, 6 rescued. * , built 1892, stranded 1912 South Shetlands * , built 1892, stranded in Norfolk 1905 * , built 1903 in Italy, scrapped 1936 * , built 1917, giving to the Chilean navy, in 1943 as it was in Valparaiso when the Chilean government declared war on Germany, later became the Chilean Navy schoolship ''Lautaro'', which was caught by fire in his way to Mexico and sunk off the coast of Peru in 1945. * , built 1902, after an accident in 1936 was scrapped in 1938 Other P-Line ships were: * ''Pudel'', built 1857, sunk 1870 * ''Palmyra'', steel full-rigged ship built in 1889 by

Blohm & Voss Blohm+Voss (B+V), also written historically as Blohm & Voss, Blohm und Voß etc., is a German shipbuilding and engineering company. Founded in Hamburg in 1877 to specialise in steel-hulled ships, its most famous product was the World War II battle ...

, Hamburg. Stranded on the Wellington Islands on the South Chilean coast 2 July 1908. The captain and the first mate were able to reach shore but the rest of the crew of 21 men disappeared in one of the lifeboats. * ''Pera'', built 1890, torpedoed 1917 * ''Pitlochry'', built 1894, sunk 1913 in the English Channel * ''Preussen I'', built 1902, sunk in South Atlantic 1909 * ''Pellworm'', built 1902, sunk 1944 * ''Pangani'', built 1903, sunk 1913 * ''Penang'', built 1905, torpedoed 1940 The Laeisz shipping company still exists today, operating many freighters under traditional names.

References

{{reflist

External links

Homepage
of the F. Laeisz shipping company today.
Krusenshtern ex Padua

Video
of passage around the horn with Peking in 1928. Individual sailing vessels Shipping companies of Germany Tall ships of Germany Companies established in 1824 Laeisz family 1824 establishments in the German Confederation Windjammers

History

Ships

See also

References

External links