- Kankō Maru
The Nihongo|Kankō Maru|観光丸|Kankōmaru| was Japan's first steam warship.
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 fromDonker Curtius , head of theDutch 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 Nihongo|"Soembing"|スームビング, the name of an
Indonesia n volcano, was presented to the government of theShogun by the Dutch King, Willem III in 1855. She was renamed Nihongo|"Kankō Maru"|観光丸, after a line in theI Ching : Nihongo|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 DirectorNagai 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.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.paceship project
"
Kankoh-maru " is also the name of a Japanese spaceship project for space tourism.ee also
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Imperial Japanese Navy External links
* [http://www.uchumaru.com/spaceship/kankohmaru.htm Spaceship Kankoh Maru (Japanese)]
* [http://english.huistenbosch.co.jp/access/ship/kankou/ Kanko Maru replica]
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