Junk journey into history

Monday 21 April 2008

REPLICA junk Princess Taiping will embark on an 11-month transpacific voyage this May to demonstrate that Chinese seafarers had the techniques and skills to make a round trip between China and the Americas four centuries before Magellan and Columbus.

The 16 m long junk has been built using traditional Fujianese methods, which excluded modern materials such as bolts, nuts, screws, polyester and plastic resins. Only Ming dynasty junk construction techniques were employed and underwent strict validation by an officially authorised archaeological unit to ensure the authenticity of the vessel.

The junk, with a crew of 12 and weighing 30 tonnes, was due to arrive in Hong Kong on Saturday in preparation for its voyage across the Pacific, sailing via Okinawa, Yokohama, Vancouver and Seattle before arriving in San Francisco. The junk will return to Xiamen in eastern China by April 2009, using a route thought to have been first used by the 16th century Spanish galleons.

A model of Princess Taiping — unpainted to show the detail of the junk’s construction — has been put on display in the Hong Kong Maritime Museum to commemorate the voyage.

Battle of the cruisers

MUCH excitement in Southampton last week as P&O Cruises named Ventura, its latest and biggest ship, with a little help from Dame Helen Mirren.

At the same time the Passenger Shipping Association marked 50 years of cruise lines co-operating with one another with a special dinner on board.

But it was refreshing to see that good old-fashioned rivalry is not dead as Royal Caribbean chose the same week to announce details of its Project Genesis ship, which will weigh in at an enormous 220,000 tonnes when it is launched at the end of next year.

A preliminary round, perhaps, to this summer’s little joust on the south coast when Ventura and Royal Caribbean’s Independence of the Seas battle it out for the hearts and minds of the British cruiser in what, for both, will be an initial summer season.

Katrina and the waves

IN THE less rarified world of ferries in which the P&O name also lives, the enter- tainment is on a different level. For those who can’t get enough of the Eurovision Song Contest, for example, P&O Ferries is organising a musical cruise to Spain.

The Eurovision three-night mini cruise sails from Portsmouth for Bilbao on May 22. A spokesperson assures us those on board will be able to tune in to the contest’s final in the company of Katrina, leader of the last winning UK entry.

Also on board will be Maxine Mazumder, who, we are told, impersonated 1969 winner Lulu on ITV’s Stars in their Eyes, plus tribute band Abba Revival.

Sounds quite a trip.

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