Peter von Danzig (ship)

For 'Peter von Danzig', the 15th century German Fencing master, see Cod. 44 A 8.

Career
Name:	Peter von Danzig
Acquired:	by Danzig, 1462
Decommissioned:	Second half of the 1470s
Homeport:	Danzig
General characteristics
Type:	Carrack
Tons burthen:	ca. 800 tons
Length:	ca. 51 m (167 ft 4 in) on deck ca. 31 m (101 ft 8 in) keel
Beam:	ca. 12 m (39 ft 4 in)
Propulsion:	760 m2 (8,181 sq ft) of sails
Crew:	50 sailors, 300 marines
Armament:	18 guns

Peter von Danzig was a 15th century ship of the Hanseatic League. It was the first large vessel in the Baltic Sea featuring carvel planking.

Career

The Peter von Danzig was built at the French west coast and was originally named Pierre de la Rochelle or Peter van Rosseel. Carrying sea salt from the Atlantic, the ship arrived in Danzig in 1462 after having been damaged in a storm.

The ship lay inactive for a while in Danzig harbour, and after the owner died without having paid repair costs, the ship was eventually seized and changed over to a warship when the Hanse declared war on England.

Between 1471 and 1473 the Peter von Danzig operated in the North Sea under captain Paul Beneke, hunting English merchantmen with a letter of marque and securing Hanse convoys. After the Treaty of Utrecht (1474), the ship undertook several trade trips abroad, before it was decommissioned in the late 1470s.

See also

• List of world's largest wooden ships
• Adler von Lübeck
• List of ships of the Hanseatic League

Further reading

• Jochen Brennecke: Geschichte der Schiffahrt, Künzelsau 1986 (2nd ed.) ISBN 3-89393-176-7
• Propyläen Technikgeschichte (Ed. Wolfgang König): Karl-Heinz Ludwig, Volker Schmidtchen: Metalle und Macht. 1000 bis 1600. Berlin, Frankfurt/Main 1992 (2nd ed.) ISBN 3-549-05227-8