it was about Crossrail,
which is a 73-mile railway line under development in England
that crosses London from east to west, well they uncovered a 100 year old ship slipway near Canning Town, east London,
but not just any old slipway, this is the slipway of the Thames Ironworks,
which as any British football fan will tell you gave birth to the Thames Ironworks Football Club, or as it is better known today, West Ham United,
so what has all of that got to do with Peru? well the answer is that today I read about one of the ships built by the Thames Ironworks is still going strong! well it does now have a newer engine, but it is still floating and working, in 1861,
the Peruvian government undertook a daunting task: to build two warships on
Lake Titicaca--the highest navigable lake in the world. The lake formed part of
Peruvian-Bolivian border and Peru wanted to be prepared for any future
hostilities, Peru
contracted two British shipbuilders for this purpose. There were no modern
roads leading up to the lake. So the builders brought the ships' components by
mule 225 miles through a desert up to the lake for assembly. No piece could
weigh more than 392 pounds--the maximum weight a mule could carry, the
shipbuilders completed the Yavari in 1870 and the Yapura in
1872, the Yavari is now a museum ship and for a time offered bed and breakfast, but the Yapura, which is
pictured above, is still in service, photograph Peru Navy, for a insight of the journey, and the fact that the gunship did not have guns and at one time ran on lima poo, there is a short read about it here.
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