ENGINEER'S FEAT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 99, 29 April 1933, Page 10

ENGINEER'S FEAT.

FIRST SHIP ON TITICACA.

EIGHTEEN MONTHS' LABOUR.

A quiet little Scottish engineer with a story of adventure and dogged achievement died at Wellington a few days ago. This was Mr. John Wilson, who retired two years ago from the service of the New Zealand railways, where he had been engaged in the engineering drawing office at headquarters. Forty years ago he carried out the difficult task of building the first modern steamship that floated on Lake Titicaca, in Peru, which is as high above the sea as our Alpine summit Aorangi. The vessel- he constructed and launched there, under enormous difficulties, was a steamer which the firm of Denny Bros., of Dumbarton, had contracted to supply_ to the Peruvian Corporation for trading service on Lake Titidaca. 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, in 1892, 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 r taken By rail up into the Andes, and reconstructed on the shore of the great lake.

Tlie young engineer, "Wilson, accomplished the work almost lonehand'ed, so far as European atssistnnee was concerned; tie 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, or rather launches, engined by a Birmingham firm, were the only propelled craft hitherto known on Titicaca, where tl'e 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 IS months. There were many delays, because of primitive appliances, and the periodical native labour difficulties, but at last the Coya, a.s 'the steamer was christened, was ;safely launched, and her builders tooV iier on a triumphal cruise round the Jake, and handed her over to the Peruvian authorities. It was not long afterwards that the Coya was tho scene of a lively little revolutionary melee, in which several lives were lost when a party of insurgents tried to seize the vessel. Wilson's perseverance with his job, with only his own judgment and initiative on which to rely, in the face of all kinds of 'obstacles, was a fine example of duty faithfully performed.