…; transferred from the Ministerie van Marine (Department of the Navy), The Hague, to the museum, 1883

Object number: NG-MC-1187-2

Black and white photograph showing the dry dock afloat with a number of workmen on it. A notable feature of the photograph is that the steam engine has been moved to the upper deck: this was done because of leakage problems.

This iron dry dock was made by the Koninklijke Fabriek voor Stoom- en Andere Werktuigen Paul van Vlissingen & Dudok van Heel in Amsterdam from 1863 to 1864. A model of this dry dock is NG-MC-1187.

The original design was by C. Scheffer, then a Navy engineer in Surabaya, and improved by August Elize Tromp (1801-1871) and J. Strootman. It was 90 metres long and had a load-bearing capacity of 3,000 tons. It was taken apart and shipped to Surabaya in 1864, where it was assembled again and towed to the island of Onrust to replace the wooden dry docks there. At the end of the 1870s, it was considered worn out and was consequently replaced by a larger floating dock of which NG-MC-1411 is a model.

A.E. Tromp and J. Strootman, ‘IJzeren drijvend droogdok voor de dienst der Marine in Oost-Indië’, Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut van Ingenieurs (1865-66), pp. 10-18, pl. 4-9; B.J. Tideman, Memoriaal van de Marine, bevattende opgaven betrekkelijk de afmetingen, constructie, ... van Nederlandsche oorlogsschepen en omtrent enige havens, dokken, sluizen, werven enz., Amsterdam 1876-80, 2de afd., p. 154, pl. 24 fig. 22; J.M. Obreen et al., handwritten inventory list for items 944 to 1431, 1884, manuscript in HNA 476 RMA, inv. no. 1089, no. 1187; M.G. de Boer, Honderd jaar machine-industrie op Oostenburg, Amsterdam 1927, p. 40; J.B. Kist (ed.), Van VOC tot Werkspoor. Het Amsterdamse industrieterrein Oostenburg, Utrecht 1986, p. 190, fig. 17; A.A. Lemmers, ‘Asmus op de klippen’, in H. Stevens (ed.), The Art of Technology: The Navy Model Collection in the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam/Wormer 1995, pp. 38-41; A.A. Lemmers, Techniek op schaal. Modellen en het technologiebeleid van de Marine 1725-1885, Amsterdam 1996, pp. 268-90; A.A. Lemmers, ‘The Historical Experience of a Scaled-Down Nineteenth Century Drydock’, The Northern Mariner/Le marin du Nord 8 (1998), no. 3, pp. 63-87; A.A. Lemmers, ‘Het oog op Onrust’, Marineblad 109 (1999), no. 6, pp. 260-69; A.J. Hoving, Message in a Model: Stories from the Navy Model Room of the Rijksmuseum, Florence, OR 2013, pp. 224-2

J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'anonymous, Photograph of a Floating Dry Dock, Java, 1877 - 1878', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200413990