MV Ilala, formally Ilala II, is a motor ferry that has plied Lake Malawi in East Africa since 1951. Every week she crosses the lake all the way north to Chilumba, Malawi, near Tanzania (about 300miles from Monkey Bay) and then returns to Monkey Bay. She carries both passengers and freight, and calls at major towns on both the Malawian and Mozambican coast, as well as at two islands of the lake (Likoma and Chizumulu).
While the ferry is often late (reportedly by as much as 24 hours or more)[1] and has sometimes broken down[2] she remains the most important means of long-distance transport for the people living on the coast of the lake. She is 172abbr=onNaNabbr=on long overall, has a gross tonnage of 620 tons and can accommodate up to 365 passengers and 100 tons of cargo.[3]
Yarrow Shipbuilders at Scotstoun near Glasgow, Scotland built Ilala for Nyasaland Railways in 1949.[4] As she was the second boat to be built for service on Lake Malawi (the first being built in 1875 at Poplar), and her predecessor was called Ilala, the ship was formally named Ilala II, but she is now commonly called just Ilala and this is also how the name is painted on the hull. In turn, the first Ilala was named after the Ilala region of Zambia, where David Livingstone was first buried.
Once built, the ship was dismantled and transported to Malawi (then Nyasaland) in pieces, first by ship to Mozambique and then from Beira, Mozambique by rail and road to Chipoka.[4] [5] She is operated by Malawi Lake Services and based in Monkey Bay, Malawi (on the southern end of the lake);[5] She began operating in 1951, and has run continuously since then, except for periods of maintenance.[6] She also survived several groundings. Some steel panels have been repaired over time, and she was re-engined in the 1990s.[5] When Ilala has been out of service for maintenance, she was usually replaced by a companion, newer ferry called (which means "peace" in Chewa), which otherwise only cruises the southern part of the lake.[7] The also provides additional coverage for Ilala.[8]
British historian, traveller and writer Oliver Ransford thus describes life aboard the MV Ilala in his book Malawi, Livingstone's Lake:
The ship has been depicted in several postage stamps of Nyasaland/Malawi.[9] In 2009, BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service broadcast a travelogue-style tribute in occasion of the Ilalas 60th anniversary, with interviews with managers, crew, passengers and tourists.[5]
The MV Ilala weekly calls at the following places (they are visited in this order when the boat is going north, and in the inverse order when the boat goes back south):[10]
In the past, the ship used to reach further north to Karonga and the short strip of the northern coast of the lake belonging to Tanzania, but this route has been discontinued.