The Lady Wright and the river's later ferries

The Gambia Ports Authority's river fleet once included the steamer Lady Wright, later replaced by a new vessel, the Lady Chilel. A tribute to a former GPA managing director credits this replacement, alongside the purchase of the ocean-going vessel Bintang Bolong, as one of the Authority's milestone projects. ^{[thepoint-gpa-cham-tribute]}

Ferry capacity grew through separate donor-financed projects: a first ferries project funded by the Netherlands government, and a second, in 1986, financed by the German government through KfW. These projects, rather than any single vessel, expanded how the river's crossings, not only its main channel, were served. ^{[thepoint-gpa-cham-tribute]}