250-metre transport across a sea dike concludes 10 months of engineering; pontoon transport, spmt operation and jacking onto final foundation all successfully concluded 

Wooden sailing vessel Batavia was successfully transported to and installed at its final resting place in Lelystad on Oct 2^nd. The 1995-delivered, full-scale reconstruction of the 1628 Dutch East India Company ship had been prepared for its final voyage at Damen Shiprepair Amsterdam. It was transported on a specially built cradle, placed on a pontoon, and driven ashore at Museum Batavialand, Lelystad. Two SPMT trains of 28 axle lines each took the 646-tonne wooden ship and her 101.2-tonne cradle off a pontoon, up a purpose-built ramp, across the Markermeer dike and 250 metres onto the grounds of Museum Batavialand. The next day,  the jacking system lowered her onto her permanent concrete foundation.

Q3 Heavy Lift built up the two SPMT trains in Dordrecht and shipped them on a small pontoon to Amsterdam, where they drove onto the main pontoon and took up position beneath the cradle. The axle count is driven not by the weight but by the stiffness requirement: 56 axle lines spread the load far enough along the cradle to keep it from deflecting under a vulnerable, 30+ years old wooden hull that cannot tolerate being worked. The load paths were modelled in detail during ten months of engineering, which established where the Batavia is strong enough to carry support and how high each support point had to sit.

A 250-metre route surveyed metre by metre

The pontoon was trimmed to meet a prepared ramp, with load-spreading and crane mats laid to carry the trains across the dike footpath. The dike itself was the governing constraint, as the land behind it lies well below sea level. The technical partners closely collaborated with the Directorate-General for Public Works, the Water Authority Zuiderzeeland, the Province of Flevoland and the Municipality of Lelystad. The ramp was built deliberately long to keep the approach angle shallow and the ground pressure as even as possible. Q3 Heavy Lift set out the driving path in advance, including ground pressures, subsoil conditions and buried services. Lamp posts and street furniture along the route were removed and will be reinstated.

Coming off the pontoon, the trains made a turn and reversed the ship into position, again a maneuver preceded by soil investigation along the full route. “It is only 250 metres, but if you drive over a pipeline you didn’t know was there, you have a problem,” says Ard Suvaal, Project Manager at Trans Global Projects, which held project management, risk analysis, permitting and public safety for the operation. “That groundwork is what makes the difference on a job like this.”

“We move large steel structures for a living – transformers, oil and gas, offshore. Usually, almost nobody sees those projects and it usually just inconveniences local people along the route. This time we have a reconstruction of a 17th-century VOC ship standing on the trailers, in full public view and with a lot of guests and media watching the operation. I am proud of that, and even more of how this team worked: all the partners put their calculations, ideas, second thoughts and solutions on the table and solved things together rather than waiting on each other.”

Eight metres higher than before

On her new position the Batavia stands more than 8 metres higher than at her old berth at the museum’s quayside, making her visible across the surrounding area. The move is intended to preserve the ship for the long term: ashore, the timber can dry, the hull is better protected from the weather and maintenance can be carried out properly. The Batavia will form the centrepiece of the redeveloped Museum Batavialand, due to open at the end of 2028.