MV Liemba

MV Liemba

The MV Liemba, formerly the Graf Goetzen or Graf von Goetzen, is a passenger and cargo ferry that runs along the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika. She is operated by the Marine Services Company Limited of Tanzania and operates between the ports of Kigoma, Tanzania and Mpulungu, Zambia with numerous stops to pick up and set down passengers in between.

Graf von Goetzen was built in 1913 in Germany, and was one of three vessels operated by the German Empire to control Lake Tanganyika during the early part of the First World War. Her master had her scuttled on 26 July 1916 off the mouth of the Malagarasi River during the German retreat from the town of Kigoma. In 1924 a British Royal Navy salvage team raised her and in 1927 she was recommissioned as the Liemba. The Liemba is the last vessel of the Kaiserlich Marine still actively sailing anywhere in the world.

The ship was the inspiration for the German gunboat Luisa in C. S. Forester's 1935 novel The African Queen, and John Huston's subsequent film version. Giles Foden later retold the story of her sinking in his book Mimi and Toutou Go Forth: The Bizarre Battle for Lake Tanganyika. In 1992 the ship featured in the BBC Television travel series Pole to Pole and Michael Palin stayed in one of her cabins. A feature documentary film on the ship Liemba, narrated by Chiwoniso Maraire, was released in 2010 by Breadbox Productions in the US.