MV ''Victoria'' is a

Lake Victoria ferry Lake Victoria ferries are motor ships (earlier examples were steamboats) for ferry services carrying freight and/or vehicles and/or passengers between Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya on Lake Victoria. Operating ferries on Lake Victoria are m ...

operated by the Marine Services Company Limited of

Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands and ...

. Until

Kenyan independence A part of Eastern Africa, the territory of what is known as Kenya has seen Homo (genus), human habitation since the beginning of the Lower Paleolithic. The Bantu expansion from a West African centre of dispersal reached the area by the 1st mill ...

from the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

in 1963 she was the

Royal Mail Ship Royal Mail Ship (sometimes Steam-ship or Steamer), usually seen in its abbreviated form RMS, is the ship prefix used for seagoing vessels that carry mail under contract to the British Royal Mail. The designation dates back to 1840. Any vessel de ...

RMS ''Victoria''. She then operated under the Kenyan flag until 1977, when she was transferred to Tanzania.

Building

''Victoria'' was built as a "knock-down" ship.

Yarrow Shipbuilders Limited Yarrow Shipbuilders Limited (YSL), often styled as simply Yarrows, was a major shipbuilding firm based in the Scotstoun district of Glasgow on the River Clyde. It is now part of BAE Systems Surface Ships, owned by BAE Systems, which has also ...

built her at Scotstoun, Glasgow, then dismantled her in June 1959. She was then exported in 1,500 crates via

Mombasa Mombasa ( ; ) is a coastal city in southeastern Kenya along the Indian Ocean. It was the first capital of the British East Africa, before Nairobi was elevated to capital city status. It now serves as the capital of Mombasa County. The town is ...

Kisumu Kisumu ( ) is the List of cities and towns in Kenya by population, third-largest city in Kenya after the capital, Nairobi, and the coastal city of Mombasa (census 2019). It is the third-largest city after Kampala and Mwanza in the Lake Victor ...

Lake Victoria Lake Victoria is one of the African Great Lakes. With a surface area of approximately , Lake Victoria is Africa's largest lake by area, the world's largest tropical lake, and the world's second-largest fresh water lake by surface area after ...

, where her reassembly was begun in December 1959 and she was launched on 5 September 1960. She was handed over to the

East African Railways and Harbours Corporation The East African Railways and Harbours Corporation (EAR&H) is a defunct company that operated railways and harbours in East Africa from 1948 to 1977. It was formed in 1948 for the new East African High Commission by merging the Kenya and Ugand ...

(EAR&H) on 26 June 1961 and commissioned in 22 July. When the ship was commissioned

Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during ...

granted her the

(RMS) designation: the only EAR&H ship to receive this distinction.

Service

When commissioned in 1961, ''Victoria'' had capacity for 230 passengers and 200 tons of freight and had refrigeration for perishable cargo. She took over the EAR&H's circular service around the ports of Lake Victoria, halving the total journey time to two and a half days which enabled her to serve all ports on the lake twice a week. EAR&H accordingly introduced new fares for passengers and rates for different classes of freight on her. In 1977 EAR&H was divided between

Kenya ) , national_anthem = "Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi , ...

and

Uganda }), is a landlocked country in East Africa East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territor ...

and ''Victoria'' was transferred to the new

Tanzania Railways The Tanzania Railways Corporation (TRC) is a state corporation, state-owned enterprise that runs one of Tanzania's two main railway networks. When the East African Railways and Harbours Corporation was dissolved in 1977 and its assets divided b ...

. In 1997 TRC's inland shipping division became a separate company, the Marine Services Company Ltd. ''Victoria'' was refurbished and due to return to service between

Bukoba Bukoba is a city with a population of 128,796 (2012 census), situated in the north west of Tanzania on the south western shores of Lake Victoria. It is the capital of the Kagera region, and the administrative seat for Bukoba Urban District. T ...

and

Mwanza Mwanza City, also known as Rock City to the residents, is a port city and capital of Mwanza Region on the southern shore of Lake Victoria in north-western Tanzania. With an urban population of 1,182,000 in 2021, it is Tanzania's second largest c ...

in June 2020. The vessel started servicing the Mwanza-Bukoba route as planned in August 2020 under the name "New Victoria". After a scheduled annual inspection in September 2021 the ship resumed operations one month later.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Victoria 1960 ships Ferries of Kenya Ferries of Tanzania Passenger ships of Kenya Passenger ships of Tanzania Ships built on the River Clyde