View source for Engineering:African Queen (boat)

{{Italic title}}
{{Infobox NRHP
| name = ''African Queen''
| image = African Queen, in Key Largo, FL, US.jpg
| caption = The ''African Queen'', January 2023
| location = Key Largo, Florida
| coordinates = {{coord|25|5|44.06|N|80|26|17.83|W|display=inline,title}}
| locmapin = Florida#USA
| built = 1912 and 1950
| architect = Lytham Shipbuilding & Engineering Co
| architecture = 
| area = 
| added = February 18, 1992<ref name="nris">{{NRISref|2009a}}</ref>
| visitation_num = 
| visitation_year = 
| refnum = 91001771
}}
'''''African Queen''''' (also known as '''''S/L Livingstone''''') was the name of two boats used in the 1951 movie ''The African Queen'' starring Humprey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn. It was filmed in the Belgian Congo on a tributary of the Congo River, and on the Nile in the Murchison Falls National Park in Uganda. Two boats were utilised, one in each location. One of the boats is now located in Key Largo, Florida and on February 18, 1992, was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.<ref name=nris/> The other is located in Jinja, Uganda. 

==History==
===The Congo boat===
This ''African Queen'' was a 30-foot steam boat built of riveted sheet iron in 1912 in the {{wipe|United Kingdom}} for service in Africa on the Victoria Nile and Lake Albert where the movie was filmed in 1950. Originally named ''Livingstone'', she was built for the British East Africa Railway<ref name=saved>{{cite web |url= http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/30/showbiz/african-queen-bogart/index.html |title=Humphrey Bogart's boat 'African Queen' saved from scrapheap - CNN.com |first=Eoghan |last=Macguire |work=cnn.com |year=2012 |access-date=30 April 2012}}</ref> and used from 1912 to 1968. It spent most of its first 50 years operating in the waters of the Ruki River in the northern Democratic Republic of Congo where she was used to transport hunters, mercenaries, and cargo.<ref name=saved/>

According to an article on its 2012 restoration, it was built by Lytham Shipbuilding and Engineering Co.,<ref name=saved/> as evidenced by the boiler plate and Lancashire records.

The boat was found in [[Place:Cairo|Cairo]], [[Place:Egypt|Egypt]] in the 1970s, with coal still in its [[Engineering:Bilge|bilge]]s. Purchased and shipped to the United States, it has had a succession of owners and is currently held in trust. It was refurbished in 2012, including installation of an interior steel hull frame and new boiler, and restored to service as a tourist boat.<ref name=saved/> 

===The Nile boat===
The other ''African Queen'' was built in 1950 for the film purposes and was discovered by Yank Evans, a Patagonian mechanical engineer who'd come across what was left of the vessel while working on the roads in Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda in 1984. "Yank came across a carcass of a steel boat, in the bushes there just left to rot. He asked the locals what this was and they said well that's the ''African Queen''. So he bought it off the National Parks for $1."<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|last=Fallon|first=Amy|date=2013-11-02|title=Kiwi refloats movie history|language=en-NZ|work=NZ Herald|url=https://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=11150624|access-date=2020-06-14|issn=1170-0777}}</ref> Evans, who had worked on the boat with his son Billy and gave her a steam engine then stored the boat when he moved to Kenya in 1997 and her new home became a trailer in the garden.<ref name=":0" />

Cam McLeay, a Kiwi who lived in Uganda for ten years with his family, purchased the Nile ''African Queen'' after hearing her story and set to finishing the restorations and getting the boat's original steam engine functioning and in the water.<ref name=":0" /> McLeay and his team rebuilt the ''African Queen'''s century-old Brady steam engine and replating the hull and replacing over 100 pipes, sourcing parts mostly from the UK but also from within Uganda.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:African-Queen-Key-Largo.JPG|alt=|The ''African Queen'' under a canvas canopy in 2009
File:African Queen - Key Largo.jpg|The ''African Queen'', June 2020
</gallery>

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
* [https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/AssetDetail?assetID=37670282-0bf9-4d58-9e82-0f6a8e766ad0 Monroe County listings at National Register of Historic Places]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070216141555/http://www.flheritage.com/facts/reports/places/index.cfm?fuseaction=ListAreas&county=Monroe Monroe County listings at Florida's Office of Cultural and Historical Programs]
*https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/jan/20/african-queen-boat-takes-tourists-back-on-nile
*https://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=11150624


{{DEFAULTSORT:African Queen (Boat)}}
[[Category:Steamboats]]
[[Category:Riverboats]]

{{Sourceattribution|African Queen (boat)}}