SS Coya

SS Coya is a 19th-century iron-hulled steamship on Lake Titicaca in Peru. After a long history carrying freight and passengers she is currently a floating restaurant.

History
Peru already had two steamships on Lake Titicaca; Yavari and Yapura. Increasing traffic had outstripped their cargo and passenger capacities so the Peruvian Corporation, a UK-owned company that had taken over Peru's railways and lake shipping in 1890, ordered a much larger ship to supplement them. Coya, at 546 tons and 170 ft long, was the largest steamship on Lake Titicaca when she was launched in 1893.

William Denny and Brothers of Dumbarton on the River Clyde, Scotland built Coya in 1892 in "knock down" form; that is, they assembled her with bolts and nuts at the shipyard, dismantled her into thousands of parts small enough to transport, shipped the parts to Lake Titicaca where she was reassembled with rivets and launched in 1893.

Lake traffic continued to grow, so the Corporation added the much larger SS Inca (1,809 tons) in 1905 and SS Ollanta (2,200 tons) in 1930. However, Coya continued in service on the lake.

In 1975 the Peruvian Corporation was nationalised and Coya's ownership passed to the state railway company ENAFER. In 1984 Coya was grounded by flooding of the lake that then receded and left her beached on dry land. In 2001 she was rescued, restored and refloated as a restaurant.

Coya may be the oldest surviving Denny-built steamship in the world.