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| - Fact Check: No, it's not a 282-year-old ship, but a replica of Swedish East India Company's Gotheborg
A picture of the Swedish East India Company ship, Gotheborg, has gone viral on social media with the false claim that it is a 282-year-old ship which has returned to London for the first time since 1787.
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India Today Fact Check
The ship in this photo is not 282-year-old. It is a replica of the Swedish East India Company ship - Gotheborg - that sank in 1745. The photo was taken when the replica was anchored in London in May 2007.
A photo of a heritage ship sailing through Thames has gone viral with the claim, “A 282-year-old East India trading company ship returns to London for the first time since 1787.”
In this photo, the ship can be seen with the famous Tower Bridge in London in the background.
India Today Anti-Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found that claim with the photo is misleading. The ship is not 282-year-old, but a replica of the Swedish East India company ship, named Gotheborg.
Archived versions of posts with similar claims can be seen here, here, here, and here.
AFWA Check
After a reverse search of the photo, we found the same photo on Reddit. This photo was posted on March 14, 2015, with the description, “The ship, modelled on the original 18th Century Swedish ship the Gothenburg (Gotheborg), fired her cannon to salute London at Tower Bridge.”
Taking a cue from there, we did a keyword search and found an article published by the BBC featuring the same photograph on May 19, 2007.
The article stated that the construction work for this replica began in 2002 and the replica finally reached London in May 2007 after visiting 13 countries, recreating the Old East India trading routes. The King and Queen of Sweden also visited the ship when it was anchored in London.
We also conducted a search to find out the history of original Gothebrug. The ship Gotheborg sank on September 12, 1745, after it struck an underwater rock just outside the harbour of Gothenburg.
It is believed that the ship was also anchored in India (Bengal) to procure some wood for repair works during her last voyage.
Hence, we can conclude that the claim with this photo is misleading. It is not a 282-year-old ship, but a replica of the old ship.
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