The Lake Victoria ferries are and were steam- and diesel-powered ships used for freight and passenger transport between Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya on Lake Victoria. The main ports on the lake are Kisumu, Mwanza, Bukoba, Entebbe, Port Bell and Jinja.

Typical journey times between Port Bell, in Uganda and Kisumu, in Kenya, are 13 hours and between Port Bell and Mwanza, in Tanzania, are 19 hours.

The original ferries serving the Uganda Railway in the early 1900s, were built in Britain, disassembled, transported in parts by sea to Mombasa and by rail to Kisumu and reassembled. RMS Victoria was built at the Yarrow shipyard in Glasgow.

The successor to Uganda Railway links Mombasa to the port of Kisumu on Lake Victoria. A Tanzanian railway links Mwanza and Dar es Salaam. This network allows countries of the African interior such as Uganda and Rwanda to transport freight to and from world markets.

Other lakes in the region such as Lake Tanganyika, Lake Malawi and Lake Albert have used ferries which were sometimes linked to railways in a similar way.

In May 1996, the Tanzanian ferry, MV Bukoba sunk with the loss of 800 lives.

At present Uganda has three freight ferries on Lake Victoria: MV Pamba , MV Kaawa and MV Kabalega . Tanzania operates MV Uhuru and Kenya operates MV Umoja .

External links

Malcolm McCrow's EAR&H history site