Lake Victoria ferries
In the 21st century, ferries are mostly operating domestically within the borders of Kenya, Uganda or Tanzania and between mainland ports and Lake Victoria islands.
The train ferries connect the Uganda Railway at Port Bell with the Tanzanian Central Line at Mwanza.
The Central Line is linked to the Tanzanian Indian Ocean port of Dar es Salaam to transport freight to and from world markets.
The rail jetties at Kisumu and Musoma connect to railyards in the port areas, but these are rarely used as there are no operational railways in their hinterlands.
[1] The first ferry on Lake Victoria started operation in 1900s during the British colonial era, from the port of Kisumu.
New Ro-Pax and Ro-Ro multipurpose ferries have continued to come into operation in recent years, built and assembled in Mwanza in Tanzania.
Two new Tanzanian state-owned Ro-Pax ferries, Misungwi (2016) and Mwanza (2018), can each transport up to 1000 passengers including up to 36 cars or up to 250 tonnes of cargo.
The 20th century ferries have almost entirely been designed and built outside Africa, mostly in the UK and Germany but were assembled at Lake Victoria from pre-assembled parts.
Most of the ferries delivered to several operators around Lake Victoria in the 21st century however have been designed and built in Tanzania through construction firms with dockyards and floating dry docks located at Mwanza port.
Most new ro-ro ferries on Lake Victoria have been built by local Songoro Marine Transport Ltd, a company with construction services in Mwanza.
Outside Mwanza, a new Kenyan company based in Kisumu, Globology Ltd, is planning to build and to operate up to 15 passenger-only catamaran passenger ferries until 2020.
[1] The original ships serving the Uganda Railway were built in the United Kingdom as "knock down" ships; that is, they were bolted together, all the parts marked with numbers, disassembled into thousands of parts, transported in kit form by sea to Mombasa and by railway to Kisumu and reassembled.
[3] In the 1950s, Sybil sank at her moorings but she was raised, restored as a passenger and cargo vessel, and in 1956 re-entered service.
[9][10] They were troop ships during the First World War East African Campaign[9][10][11] and passed into civilian service after the Armistice.
[14][16] RMS Victoria was built in 1959 by Yarrow Shipbuilders at Scotstoun[17] and reassembled for the East African Railways and Harbours Corporation (EAR&H) ship at Kisumu[18] in 1961.
The rail network linked to the Indian Ocean ports of Mombasa and Dar es Salaam which allowed countries of the African interior such as Uganda and Rwanda to transport freight to and from world markets.
RVR also took over the three remaining Lake Victoria train ferries of Uganda and Kenya (Kabalega sank in 2005), Pemba, Uhuru and Kaawa.
[27] In October 2009, the Ugandan government reiterated that it would recondition the Pemba and Kaawa and return them to service in 2010 and 2011 respectively.
[29] Later on, the private Earthwise Ferries Ltd with branches in Tanzania and Uganda started to operate the first catamaran passenger ferry on Lake Victoria in 2012, the MV Amani at Port Bell in Uganda, followed by a sister ship in 2018, the Bluebird at Mwanza port in Tanzania.
In 2017, the contract with RVR was cancelled in both Kenya and Uganda due to financial irregularities, both KRC and URC restarted the operations on their respective railway networks.
URC also restarted the services at the railhead in Port Bell, the train ferry Kaawa was repaired and refurbished and put back into operation.
In June 2018, the EastAfrican reported that 1180-tonne Umoja began regular service again between Mwanza and Port Bell, plying the route 26 times every month.
