WORLD SHIP SOCIETY

Fearing that the end might be near for one of the most interesting veteran passenger ships on the planet, WSS-PONY Branch member Tom Rinaldi set off in 2023 for Tanzania in East Africa, where the former R.M.S. VICTORIA has provided service across her namesake lake for most of the last 70 years. Reaching Lake Victoria after a two-day rail journey across the country, Tom managed to secure passage over-and-back aboard this little-known “liner on the lake” before it was too late. In this presentation, Tom will share the story of his most recent African adventure, including a look at the history of the old VICTORIA and the future of ferry traffic on the lakes of Africa’s Great Rift Valley.

Thomas Rinaldi grew up in the Hudson River Valley near Poughkeepsie, New York. He is the author of “Patented: 1,000 Design Patents” (Phaidon, 2021), “New York Neon” (W.W. Norton, 2012) and the co-author of the book “Hudson Valley Ruins: Forgotten Landmarks of an American Landscape” (University Press of New England, 2006). His photographs have been published in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, the New York Observer, Westchester Magazine, CNN Online, and elsewhere. Tom has exhibited at the New York State Museum at Albany and at the Municipal Art Society of New York. He is a regular contributor to the UK-based magazine “Ships Monthly.” Tom holds degrees from Georgetown University and Columbia University, and has worked for the National Park Service, the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation, and the Central Park Conservancy, and currently works as an architectural designer in New York City.

(Tom Rinaldi photo)