MV Kabalega

MV "Kabalega" was a Lake Victoria ferry operated by the Uganda Railways Corporation.
2005 collision.
In the early hours of 8 May 2005 she was involved in a collision with . "Kabalega" was "en route" to Port Bell in Uganda while "Kaawa" was sailing in the opposite direction towards Mwanza in Tanzania. "Kaawa" damaged her bow and "Kabalega" was damaged below the waterline. "Kaawa" managed to return to port but a few hours after the collision "Kabalega" sank in of water about southeast of the Ssese Islands and about from the Kuye Islands.
"Kabalega" was a train ferry. Her cook, George Saka, reported that at about 0300 hrs. "Kaawa" struck "Kabalega"s bow, dislodging the railway wagons that were secured to "Kabalega"s deck into the water. Saka told Uganda's "New Vision" newspaper that the collision tore open "Kabalega"s bow and also ruptured her #8 buoyancy tank and water also rapidly entered the #9 tank.
A distress message was radioed to a third Ugandan ferry, , which was "en route" to Mwanza ahead of "Kaawa". "Pemba" put about and reached the scene of the collision "one and a half hours" later according to Saka. "Pemba" then positioned herself alongside "Kabalega", rescued her eight officers and 16 crew and landed them at Luzira in Uganda.
If the collision took place at about 0300 hrs and Saka's account is correct, "Pemba"s rescue of "Kabalega"s crew would have been at about 0430 hrs. However, Lake Rescue East Africa states that it received a distress call at 0900 hrs that morning and "responded to the call within one hour of it being received". Lake Rescue states that "Kabalega" sank at 1137 hrs.
URC's chairman Paul Etiang admitted that marine insurance for "Kaawa", "Kabalega" and "Pemba" had expired in December 2004 and not been renewed. After the collision "Kaawa" was withdrawn from service for repairs to her bow and "Pemba" was suspended from service.
A commission of enquiry attributed the collision to inadequately trained crew on the bridges of both ferries and a lack of communication equipment. It also noted that both ferries had been involved in previous collisions, a previous incident report had been published a decade earlier but its recommendations had not been implemented. The report also highlighted the absence of a search and rescue unit that could have reached the sinking ferry soon enough.
Options for replacement.
Three years after "Kabalega" sank, Uganda's National Budget Framework Paper for the Financial Year 2008-09 said it was a "matter of urgency" to provide a replacement train ferry to "provide resources for the development of an alternative route through the port of Dar es Salaam". In May 2008 Uganda's "Daily Monitor" reported that The Minister of Finance, Ezra Suruma, was expected to announce in that year's budget speech a government allocation of 14 billion Ugandan Shillings to buy a new train ferry to replace "Kabalega".
However, in September 2009 Uganda Radio Network reported that the Ugandan Government was unlikely to replace her soon. Instead, Uganda's minister for works John Byabagambi proposed to improve port facilities at Jinja and Port Bell and allow private operators to run railway car floats with greater capacity than the ferries. Mr Byabagambi stated that "Kaawa" and "Pemba" would be reconditioned and returned to service and that private businesses had expressed an interest in raising "Kabalega" and restoring her to use as a private concession.