Image Credits: Museum Batavia Land The Batavia, the full-scale reconstruction of the 1628 Dutch East India Company ‘retourschip’, arrived at Damen Shiprepair Amsterdam on Saturday 19 September after a six-hour tow. The 56.6-metre wooden ship made the passage afloat on her own hull, masts standing, under tow by two tugs of Koninklijke Van der Wees. At the Damen yard she will be lowered onto a 100+ tonne steel and wood cradle in dry dock 4, the first step in moving her permanently ashore at Museum Batavialand in nearby Lelystad. A hull that cannot be replaced The Batavia was towed rather than carried. Placing her on a pontoon for the passage would have introduced loads the hull is not built to carry, so she stayed in the water, with her full rig in place and a 30.5-metre air draught. The timber has been afloat for 31 years. In the 17th century, these vessels could last between 15 to max 25 years. Hence, the vessel must be handled with the utmost care. The hull is in fragile condition, which set strict weather limits on the operation: the ship could not be allowed to work or move excessively in a seaway. The guns and a large part of the ballast were removed in advance, and temporary steel shoring was fitted in the hold and on the decks to absorb the loads that arise once the supporting buoyancy of the water falls away. Centimetre work in dry dock 4 The dry-docking follows a sequence engineered over the past 14 months. Crane mats are laid on a Van der Wees pontoon to distribute load, support pots are set on the mats, and the steel cradle – 39.7 metres long, 15.5 metres wide, 87.2 tonnes of steel and 14 tonnes of wood – is craned onto the pots from the quay. The pontoon is then ballasted down and submerged in dry dock 4, for which Damen Shiprepair designed a dedicated dock bed. Two small tugs manoeuvre the Batavia over the cradle, after which the dock is pumped down, and the ship settles into her supports under controlled conditions. Once dry, the remaining v