View source for Kanrin Maru

{{short description|First Japanese screw-driven steam corvette}}
{{more footnotes needed|date=April 2008}}
{|{{Infobox ship begin}}
{{Infobox ship image
|Ship image= Kanrinmaru.jpg
|Ship caption=''Kanrin Maru'', Japan's first screw-driven steam warship, 1855.
}}
{{Infobox ship career
|Hide header=
|Ship country=
|Ship flag= {{shipboxflag|Japan|naval}}
|Ship name=''Kanrin Maru''
|Ship ordered=1853
|Ship builder=[[L. Smit en Zoon]], Kinderdijk, Netherlands
|Ship laid down=  
|Ship launched= 
|Ship acquired= 1857
|Ship commissioned=  
|Ship decommissioned= 1871
|Ship in service=
|Ship out of service=
|Ship struck=  
|Ship reinstated=
|Ship homeport=
|Ship motto=  
|Ship nickname=
|Ship honours=
|Ship fate= Wrecked in a [[typhoon]], 1871
|Ship notes=
}}
{{Infobox ship characteristics
|Hide header=
|Header caption=
|Ship class= [[Bali-class sloop]]
|Ship displacement=  {{convert|300|t|LT|0|abbr=on}} 
|Ship length=  {{convert|50|m|ftin|abbr=on}} [[Length overall|o/a]] 
|Ship beam= {{convert|7.3|m|ftin|abbr=on}}
|Ship draught= 
|Ship sail plan=3-masted sail
|Ship propulsion= Coal-fired steam engine, 100 hp
|Ship speed= {{convert|6|kn|mph km/h|lk=in}}
|Ship range= 
|Ship complement=
|Ship armament= 12 guns
|Ship armour=
|Ship notes=
}}
|}

'''''Kanrin Maru''''' {{nihongo||咸臨丸||'''Unyielding'''}} was [[Japan]]'s first sail and screw-driven [[steam corvette]] (the first steam-driven Japanese warship, ''[[Japanese barque Kankō Maru|Kankō Maru]]'', was a [[Paddle steamer|side-wheeler]]). She was ordered in 1853 from the [[Netherlands]], the only Western country with which Japan had diplomatic relations throughout its period of ''[[sakoku]]'' (seclusion), by the ''[[shōgun]]''{{'}}s government, the [[Bakufu]]. She was delivered on September 21, 1857 (with the name ''Japan''), by Lt. [[Willem Huyssen van Kattendijke]] of the Dutch navy. The ship was used at the newly established Naval School of [[Nagasaki, Nagasaki|Nagasaki]] in order to build up knowledge of Western warship technology.

''Kanrin Maru'', as a screw-driven steam warship, represented a new technological advance in warship design which had been introduced in the West only ten years earlier with {{HMS|Rattler|1843}}. The ship was built by [[Fop Smit]]'s in [[Kinderdijk]], the Netherlands later known as [[L. Smit en Zoon]]. The virtually identical screw-steamship with schooner-rig ''Bali'' of the Dutch navy was also built here in 1856. She allowed Japan to get its first experience with some of the newest advances in ship design.<ref>[[Hendrik Caspar Romberg]]'s account of the ''Sangoku-maru'' is a scant record of the brief attempt by the Tokugawa shogunate to create a sea-going vessel in the 1780s.  The ship sank; and the tentative project was abandoned when the political climate in Edo shifted. See [[Timon Screech]]. (2006). {{Google books|BLzQA7cpr7wC|''Secret Memoirs of the Shoguns: Isaac Titsingh and Japan, 1779-1822,'' pp. 48-49.|page=48}}</ref>

==Japanese embassy to the US==
{{main|Japanese Embassy to the United States (1860)}}
[[File:Kanrin-Maru-Artwork-by-Suzufuji-Yujiro-c1860.jpg|thumb|260px|Kanrin Maru (circa 1860)]]
Three years later, the Bakufu sent ''Kanrin Maru'' on a mission to the United States, clearly wanting to make a point to the world that Japan had now mastered western navigation techniques and western ship technologies. On 9 February 1860 (18 January in the Japanese calendar), the Kanrin Maru, captained by [[Katsu Kaishū]] together with [[Nakahama Manjiro|John Manjiro]], [[Fukuzawa Yukichi]], and a total of  96 Japanese sailors, and the American officer [[John M. Brooke]], left [[Uraga Channel|Uraga]] for [[San Francisco]].

This became the second official Japanese embassy to cross the Pacific Ocean, around 250 years after the embassy of [[Hasekura Tsunenaga]] to Mexico and then Europe in 1614, aboard the Japanese-built galleon {{ship|Japanese warship|San Juan Bautista||2}}.

''Kanrin Maru'' was accompanied by a United States Navy ship, the {{USS|Powhatan|1850|2}} and arrived in San Francisco on March 17, 1860.<ref name=hosokawa>{{cite book |title=Nisei: the Quiet Americans|publisher=William Morrow & Company |location=New York |last=Hosokawa |first=Bill |authorlink=Bill Hosokawa|year=1969|page=25|isbn=978-0688050139}}</ref>

The official objective of the mission was to send the first ever Japanese embassy to the US, and to ratify the new treaty of Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation between the United States and Japan.

==Reclamation of the Bonin Islands==
In January 1861, "Kanrin Maru" was dispatched to the [[Bonin Islands]], also known as Ogasawara Islands in Japanese. A navigator aboard the diplomatic mission, [[Bankichi Matsuoka]] was sent to survey the islands. The shogunate of Japan first claimed the Pacific islands and its multi-ethnical settler community in the face of competing Western empires. The islands had previously been claimed by Britain, and the United States had considered making them a navy base. The flagship "Kanrin Maru" was put to use in a display of military power reminiscent of the arrival of Commodore Perry's black ships in Japan just a few years earlier.<ref name="Rüegg 2017 440–490">{{cite web |url=https://cross-currents.berkeley.edu/e-journal/issue-23/ruegg |title=Mapping the Forgotten Colony: The Ogasawara Islands and the Tokugawa Pivot to the Pacific |last=Rüegg |first=Jonas |publisher=Cross-Currents, vol. 6(2)|pages=440–490 |date=2017 |website= |access-date=November 24, 2018}}</ref>

==Boshin war==
[[File:Kanrin-Maru-Ship-Crew-1860.png|thumb|300px|Members of the [[Japanese Embassy to the United States (1860)]], who sailed on the ''Kanrin Maru'' and the  USS ''Powhatan''. [[Fukuzawa Yukichi]] sits on the right.]]
By the end of 1867, the [[Bakufu]] was attacked by pro-imperial forces, initiating the [[Boshin War]] which led to the [[Meiji Restoration]]. Towards the end of the conflict, in September 1868, after several defeats by the Bakufu, ''Kanrin Maru'' was one of the eight modern ships led by [[Enomoto Takeaki]] towards the northern part of Japan, in his final attempt to wage a counter-attack against pro-imperial forces.

The fleet encountered a typhoon on its way northward, and ''Kanrin Maru'', having suffered damage, was forced to take refuge in Shimizu harbour, where she was captured by Imperial forces, who bombarded and boarded the ship notwithstanding a white flag of surrender, and put the skeleton crew aboard to the sword.<ref>Oliver Statlet, ''Japanese Inn'', Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1982, p. 274.</ref>

Enomoto Takeaki finally surrendered in May 1869, and after the end of the conflict, ''Kanrin Maru'' was used by the new Imperial government for the development of the northern island of Hokkaido.

She was lost there in a typhoon in 1871, at [[Esashi, Hokkaidō (Hiyama)|Esashi]].
  {{multiple image
   | width     = 225
   | image1    = Kanrin Maru Monument - Golden Gate Bridge2008.jpg
   | alt1      = The view of the monument itself, with the Golden Gate bridge in the distance.
   | image2    = Memorial to the Kanrin Maru.jpg
   | alt2      = Memorial Plaque with the words: This monument is erected to commemorate the arrival of the first Japanese naval ship KANRIN MARU in San Francisco Bay on 17 March 1860. The KANRIN MARU crossed the Pacific at the same time as the U.S.S. POWHATAN which brought the first Japanese embassy to the United States. PRESENTED to the City of San Francisco by its sister city Osaka as a token of its sincere desire to further strengthen the ties of friendship and goodwill between the United States and Japan and as part of the program to mark the centennial celebration of the opening of their diplomatic relations. 17 May 1960 This plaque presented by the CITY of SAN FRANCISCO.
   | caption1  = The actual monument itself.
   | caption2  = Detail of the plaque erected in memory of the ''Kanrin Maru''
  }}

==Kanrin Maru today==
In 1990, a [[ship replica]] twice the size of the original was ordered for manufacture in the [[Netherlands]], according to the original plans. The ship was visible in the theme park of [[Huis Ten Bosch (theme park)|Huis Ten Bosch]] in [[Kyūshū]], in southern Japan. It is now used as a sightseeing ship to the [[Naruto whirlpools]] from [[Minamiawaji|Minami Awaji]] harbour.

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

==References==
*H. Huygens, "Z.M. schroef-schooner Bali," in: ''Verhandelingen en berigten betrekkelijk het zeewezen en de zeevaartkunde'', vol. 17 (1857), pp.&nbsp;178–183, esp. p.&nbsp;182
* "Steam, Steel and Shellfire. The steam warship 1815-1905" Conway's History of the ship {{ISBN|0-7858-1413-2}}
* "The origins of Japanese Trade Supremacy. Development and technology in Asia from 1540 to the Pacific War" Christopher Howe, The University of Chicago Press, {{ISBN|0-226-35485-7}}
* "End of the Bakufu and the Restoration at Hakodate" (Japanese 函館の幕末・維新) {{ISBN|4-12-001699-4}}
* {{cite book|last1=Jentschura|first1=Hansgeorg|first2=Dieter|last2=Jung|first3=Peter|last3= Mickel|year=1977|title=Warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1869–1945|publisher=United States Naval Institute|location=Annapolis, Maryland|isbn=0-87021-893-X|name-list-style=amp}}

==External links==
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20040804112638/http://www.city.yokosuka.kanagawa.jp/minato/amenity_ships/kanrinmaru.html The Kanrin Maru rebuilt]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20041112181645/http://www.town.nandan.hyogo.jp/english/resort/kankou/uzushio.htm Naruto whirpool with the Kanrin Maru]

 <!-- non-breaking space to keep AWB drones from altering the space before the navbox -->
{{coord missing|Japan}}
{{IJNFoundation}}
{{1871 shipwrecks}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kanrin Maru}}
[[Category:Screw sloops of the Imperial Japanese Navy]]
[[Category:Shipwrecks in the Sea of Japan]]
[[Category:1857 ships]]
[[Category:Ships of the Tokugawa Navy]]
[[Category:Maritime incidents in 1871]]
[[Category:Ships built in the Netherlands]]