Talk:Kanrin Maru

WP:MILHIST Assessment

Longer and more detailed than simply "a good Start", and with more pictures. Still, I am hesitant to give a B-rating to an article of this length on such a significant ship; is there any expansion that can be done here? LordAmeth 18:11, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Delivery date

The delivery date given in the article is two years early. The ship was indeed ordered in 1853 by the Bakufu in their regular diplomatic contacts with the Dutch government representative in Deshima (together with another steam corvette) but at first the Dutch government was not very enthusiastic. In 1855 things speeded up and the Dutch-navy side-wheeler Soembing, on a mission to deliver an electro-magnetic telegraph machine, was left behind in Nagasaki. This ship was renamed Kanko Maru. Meanwhile, the order for the steam corvettes apparently got filled and on September 21, 1857 the steam corvette Japan arrived on the Nagasaki roadstead under command of lt. Willem Huyssen van Kattendijke. This was later renamed to Kanrin Maru. This information is already in the wikipedia article just referenced. But my source is [1].--Ereunetes (talk) 20:24, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I was, with some difficulty, able to find the builder. It turns out to be Fop Smit in Kinderdijk, The Netherlands. Once I knew the original name Japan and the captain on its maiden voyage (Kattendijke) I was able to find a reference that gave the place of construction as Kinderdijk. See Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch Indië, vol. 52 (1861), p. 116. Next I found the reference to the Bali I included in the article, which mentions the Japan in an indirect way and provides the interesting information that the Bali and the Japan were virtually identical sisterships. This allowed me to verify the engine capacity and speed. I tried to provide external links to google books, where I found the two references, but ran afoul of a spam filter notice. Apparently google books is blacklisted?--Ereunetes (talk) 01:53, 26 February 2009 (UTC)