Overview
- Museum Batavialand reported a smooth departure, with the roughly 20-meter by 8-meter, 50-ton hull sealed in protective foil and loaded onto a pontoon for transport.
- Conservators spent about ten years in a purpose-built hall stabilizing the waterlogged wood by replacing moisture with PEG and gradually lowering humidity to dry the timbers.
- Part of the conservation hall was opened to move the hull out, the route to the quay was cleared, and cranes maneuvered the wrapped “white shoebox” onto the vessel.
- Restoration in Zwartsluis is expected to ready the hull for a museum frame within months, and Kampen plans to exhibit the ship in a new museum in 2027.
- Found in the IJssel near Kampen in 2011 and raised in 2016, the exceptionally preserved merchant vessel was likely scuttled at the end of its life to function as a river dam.