The time has come: Our radio lightship Jenni Baynton, the Netherlands' only broadcasting ship, is heading to the shipyard.

As many years have passed since its last dry-docking in 2009, the board of the "Friends of the Lightship" foundation faced an increasingly important challenge: hauling the vessel out of the water once more to clean the hull, inspect it, and give it a fresh, substantial coat of paint.

The Jenni Baynton is scheduled to dry-dock in the beginning of October.

Right now, everything is being prepared for the open day on August 29th, the Saturday of the "Fishery Days" festival, after which we will prepare for the journey to the shipyard.

For our volunteer organisation, this shipyard visit represents a massive logistical and, above all, financial challenge. A call for support earlier this year yielded a good response, but since we cannot know beforehand what might be revealed once the marine growth is blasted off, we are appealing to you once again.

Update 11-09-2026:The planned drydocking for the radiolightship Jenni Baynton has been put forward to October. This is caused by the fact that in order to keep the ship from falling over once she is out of the water, so called yokens have to be put in place to support the ship.

The shipyard takes ships out of the water by using a so-called elevator. On the floor of the elevator there is a number of “trollies”. When the elevator is in the ground floor position, the ship is positioned exactly over the trollies after which the elevator goes up. When the elevator floor is level with the shipyard floor the trollies, with the ship on them, are moved on the shipyard. Most other ships are then put on solid supports and the trollies are wheeled back to the elevator for the next ship.

Because of the way the Jenni Baynton is constructed she can not sit on the solid supports on herself without falling over. This is solved by connecting vertical yokens to one side of the trollies to keep the ship upright. However, because of these yokens it is impossible to wheel the trollies back to the elevator, which limits the use of the elevator for the duration of the stay of the JB, hence the need to plan this very tight. This is the reason that the date of the docking has been put forward a few times.

Support the shipyard visit for the radio lightship Jenni Baynton by transferring a donation to NL94 INGB 0003 2177 58 or by using the QR code: