In Franeker, the restoration of Stadsgraanjager 19 has started. For years, the 20-meter high machine could be admired in the outdoor collection of the Maritime Museum in Rotterdam. Efforts are now being made to restore the nearly 100-year-old object.
Tjitze Stiensma, project manager of Talsma Shipyard, where the ship is being restored, makes no bones about it. The restoration of Grain dredger 19 is quite a job. “What all needs to be done? I can name a hundred things. It is better to ask: what is not necessary?”, he tells the regional broadcaster Rhine estuary. “It’s a total restoration, very rigorous.”
The condition of the machine was not easy for Stiensma. “It was once professionally built, but little maintenance has been done in the last five years, so a lot has to be done, yes.”
Lots of views
A grain suction dredger, also known as an elevator, was used in ports in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The machine sucked the grain, beans and rice from a seagoing vessel and pumped it onto barges. Grain suction dredgers made work less dangerous at the time and much faster. The machines have not been used for some time now. Other machines and assembly lines are now doing the work.
City Grain Suction 19 is originally from Antwerp and according to the Maritime Museum is the last working grain suction dredger in the world. In May, the Maritime Museum Rotterdam and Museum aan de Stroom (MAS) in Antwerp decided to have the object restored together.
And so left more than two months ago the grain suction dredger from the Leuvehaven in Rotterdam to Franeker. “It was quite a ride, during which we attracted a lot of attention and many photos were taken,” says Stiensma. “We did hit a bridge on the way, but luckily everything went well.”
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