Sailing on Top of the World
Meriel Larken takes the helm of the Yavari, a Victorian ship plying the highest navigable lake in the world.
The Yavari is the oldest single-screw iron passenger ship afloat today. Recently rescued and restored, she is moored 12,500 feet above sea level, on the world’s highest navigable waterway, Lake Titicaca, which straddles the frontier between Peru and Bolivia, at an altitude of more than 12,500 ft (3,810 metres). She was built in Britain and, in pieces, was carried up the Andes by mules to the lake, reassembled and launched on Christmas Day 1870.
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