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Although 51-years separate the occurrences on Lake Titicaca with similar happenings on Lake Tanganyika, there is an interesting parallel between the M/N Yavari of 1862 and the German ship, “Graf von Goetzen” later known as the MV Liemba) of 1913. Please read on:

MV LIEMBA

Deep in what was once considered the darkest heart of Africa, on one of the world’s largest and most pristine lakes, the MV Liemba doggedly perseveres, ferrying passengers and cargo up and down the remote eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika. For nearly 90 years, the ship has served as the primary means of travel, and a critical avenue of commerce, for soldiers, traders, missionaries and migrants on Lake Tanganyika – the geographical link between east, central and southern Africa.

The MV Liemba has witnessed many sea-changes in Africa’s troubled history from the era of European colonialism, through African independence in the 1960s and up to today’s emerging global marketplace.

Originally christened the Graf von Goetzen, the ship was assembled in Papenburg, Germany in 1913, only to be taken apart piece by piece and shipped in wooden crates to Dar-es-Salaam on the Indian Ocean in what was then German East Africa. From Dar, the pieces of the 1300-ton steamship were transported 800 miles overland to Kigoma, on the shore of Lake Tanganyika, first by train and then on the backs of local porters. This journey took over three months and extolled enormous costs – including great loss of human lives.

Once reassembled, the Graf von Goetzen was launched on Lake Tanganyika to serve as a German gunboat during World War One. When defeat was certain for the Germans in 1916, they scuttled the ship to avoid its capture by the British. After 8 years on the bottom of the lake, the vessel was brought to the surface by the British, renamed the MV Liemba and put into service as a passenger and cargo ferry. Over the ensuing years, she has had a cameo in the Hollywood classic The African Queen (portraying the German gunboat, Empress Luisa), was taken over by pirates and most recently, used by the UN to shuttle tens of thousands of refugees to safety from regional conflicts in the Congo and Burundi.

Today, the MV Liemba continues to be crucial to the communities of the Lake Tanganyika region. Lakeside villages remain totally cut off from the grid of global development and are without electricity, telephones or paved roads. Villagers use dug-out canoes to race to meet each passing of the antiquated ferry attempting to sell their produce, chickens or dried fish or to buy goods imported from the markets of southern Africa. The floating open-air markets that erupt around the Liemba when she stops constitute many of the villagers only contact with the ‘modern’ world. The ship generates some of the only economic opportunities available in the area beyond subsistence farming and fishing. It also serves as the sole means by which many people can access life-sustaining supplies and services such as medicine and hospitals.

As a footnote, it should be mentioned that the British certainly couldn’t leave the existence of the “Graf von Goetzen” on Lake Tanganyika unchallenged. They too made and exhaustive effort to haul 2 vessels via an overland route to the lake which is a story in itself. To read more about it, click on the following link:

http://samilitaryhistory.org/vol014ds.html

“The Yavari, one of perhaps only a dozen surviving iron-hulled ships in the world, was built in 1862 and transported from Britain in 2,766 pieces. Brought ashore at Arica–then a Peruvian port but now part of Chile–the heavy pieces were carried by porters and on mules some 190 miles. It took six years to move and reassemble the vessel.

Currently operating as a floating museum, the Yavari awaits a luxury refit that will make it an ecological tour ship.”