1862: Vapor Yavari: Navigation on Lake Titicaca, Peru

Summary:EsperanzaNavarro
It is the story of the Yavari, the oldest single propeller driven iron ship operating en the world today; she sails on the world’s highest navigable waterway, Lake Titicaca, 12, 500 ft above sea level, which straddles the frontier between the high Andean countries of Peru and Bolivia. The actual story of the Yavari began in 1861. Today the ship is recognised by the National Historic Ships Committee of Great Britain as being in the same league as the Cutty Sark, Glenlee or Great Britain. Her attributes include being one of the earliest iron passenger /cargo steam sailers constructed in kit form, later to be ‘jumboized’. She also retains to this day, the collar which once enabled the propeller to be lifted and lowered. In 1861 Peru was a young republic. His president, Ramon Castilla ordered a ship of 300 tons for the Lake Titicaca. The order was placed with British Agents Anthony Gibbs & Sons, and the Peruvian admiral Ignacio Mariategui was dispatched to Britain to contract a shipyard to construct this vessel. The only method of transport up to Lake Titicaca was by mule and porter. Not long after his arrival in Great Britain, Admiral Mariategui discovered and informed his Government that a ship of 300 tons was too big to be built in individual parts light enough for mules to carry. Forthwith the order was changed to two smaller gunboats of 140 tons each. Mariategui commissioned the James Watt Foundry in Birmingham to build the two ships. They, in turn, subcontracted the construction of the wrought iron hulls to the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Co. In line with the very latest technology, each gunboat was bolted together and fitted out in its entirety in the –British shipyard. Each piece and part was then numbered and inventoried. Each ship was then completely disassembled and packed into packing cases, which in their turn, were duly numbered and inventoried. Finally, and together with the two propeller shafts, the Yavari and her sister ship, Yapura, were loaded on the Mayola, a ship bound for Arica, Peru. It arrived in Arica on 15th October 1862. In September 1863 the ships was dispatched by train from to Tacna on one of south America’s oldest railways, a distance of 37 miles across the world’s driest desert, the Atacama. In Tacna the packing cases were unpacked.

The items were then arranged in the order in which they would be required in the reassembly a so how it was intended they should leave the warehouse. It was estimated that the task to transport all the 2,766 smallest and lightest parts would take six months. But it took 7 years by reason of a War between Peru and Spain, and other respects. The pace of both the transportation and reassembly quicken in 1868. On 25th December 1870 the Yavari is finally launched. Until the late 1970s the Yavari continued to ply the Lake, the last years under the responsibility of the State Railways (ENAFER). In 1977 ENAFER made the Yavari and Yapura over to the Peruvian Navy and the names of the ships were changed to B.A.P. Chucuito and B.A.P. PUNO respectively. Having only limited resources, the Navy elected to maintain the Puno, and relegate the Yavari to serve as a place of detention for sailors. Thereafter no further attention was paid to her upkeep. Six years later, in 1983, believing the Yavari to have been built by Yarrows, the shipyard founded by her great grandfather, Sir Alfred Yarrow, Meriel Larken, the author, already a Peruphile, discovered the old iron lady slowly dying in a corner of Puno port. Although, in fact, the Yavari was not a Yarrow ship, the vessel’s historic value and potential for attracting revenue to one of the poorest regions of Peru were obvious. In 1987 The Yavari Project was founded in the United Kingdom and the Asociación Yavarí was formed in Peru, and in 17th February bought the Yavari from the Peruvian Navy. In 1989 began the restoration. At first the work was slow. Finally, in 1998, the Yavari was officially opened to the public. At the time of writing, she receives an average of 12,000 visitors a year from local school children to a range of tourists representing some 50 different countries.
1862: Vapor Yavari: Navigation on Lake Titicaca, Peru Originally published in Shvoong: http://www.shvoong.com/humanities/history/174527-1862-vapor-yavari-navigation-lake/