Wonderful insight for an era now in the fog of time. Sadly, so much more has been lost than we will ever know.

In the never ending history of ships, there are many tales to tell of unusual builds. One I like is the story of the gunboats built by both the German and UK governments to fight each other on Lake Tanganyika in German East Africa which was being jostled over by Britain, Belgium and Germany in WW1. The Germans built the Graf Goetzen and the UK built the Mimi and Toutou. The Germans sent their ship in 500 packing cases from Hamburg to Dar-es-Salaam which were carried across the mountains and rebuilt on the shores of the lake. The UK ships were sent in pieces to South Africa, then by train as far as possible then carried by hard labour through the jungle to the lake, where they were rebuilt. As far as I know, there was never a naval action, but UK attacked the German port of Kigoma and the Graf Goetzen was scuttled to save her getting into British hands. She was raised some ten years later and fell into the hands of the British and renamed Liemba. Now at nearly a hundred years old, she is still in use as a ferry running twice a week between Kigoma in Tanzania and Mpulunga in Zambia. She has become somewhat decrepit and the company that runs her have asked the German government for help with her restoration. What became of the British ships, I know not.

Nerys

That was great. Thank you for posting.
Rick