A SCOTSMAN'S FEAT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 45, 23 February 1931, Page 6

A SCOTSMAN'S FEAT.

The cable message from Peru recording the British Princes' trip across Lake Titicaca in a Scottish-built steamer has some special interest for New Zealand, for it was a Scottish engineer now resident in Wellington who pioneered steamship navigation on that wonderful alpine lake, and the vessel lie built is evidently the one in which the Prince of Wales and his brother cruised on Titicaca. Sir. John Wilson, who lately retired from the service of the New Zealand Railways, where he had been engaged in the engineering drawing office at headquarters, carried out the difficult task of building the first modern steamship that floated on the lake, which is as high above the sea as the summit pf our Mount Cook. This was in 1592-93. The vessel lie constructed and launched there, under enormous difficulties, was a steamer which the famous firm of Denny Bros., of Dumbarton, had contracted to supply to the Peruvian Corporation for trading service on Lake Titicaca.

Mr. Wilson, a Dumbarton man, had been for ten years in the various departments of the Denny firm, and had just completed a round voyage from London to New Zealand and back when he was entrusted with the work of putting the steamer on the lake. The vessel, of 550 tons, was first of all temporarily built on the Clyde, then dismantled and shipped in thousands of pieces to Peru, landed at Mollendo, taken by rail up into the Andes and reconstructed on the •shore of the great lake. Mr. Wilson accomplished the work almost lone-handed so far as European assistance was concerned; the only skilled man lie had was a Scottish carpenter named Bonar, from Denny's Yards. He had to engage and train raw native labour. Two small steamboats which burned llama refuse from the mountains, and which were engined by a Birmingham firm, were the only propelled craft hitherto known on Titicaca, where the many native sailing craft were made of a reed growing on the lake shores. The assembling and building of this first large steamship in the heart of the Andes took nearly eighteen months. There were many delays, because of primitive appliances and the periodical native labour difficulties, but at last the Coya, as the steamer was christened, was safely launched, and her builders took her on a triumphant cruise around the lake, and handed her over to the Peruvian authorities. It was not long afterwards that the Coya was the scene of a livolv little revolutionary melee, in which several lives" were lost when a party of insurgents tried to seize the vessel. The young Scots engineer's dogged .-perseverenee with his job, with only his own judgment and iniative on which to rely, in the face of all kinds of obstacles, was a fine example of duty faithfully performed. Now, in the evening of his days"in New Zealand, he is able to look back on his early days contract in the wilds of Incaland as the" great adventure of his life. ——J.L/.