Episode 5: Floating Fortresses
A team of engineers attempts to build and haul a titanic town of brand new floating homes 70 miles across the Netherlands. Wim Jelsma and Carin Koning is a couple on a mission to build and move their ultimate dream home - one of seven floating mansions that will become a new waterborne community in the Netherlands. This film follows a team of engineers build and move the aquatic homes across 70 miles of treacherous Dutch waterways and through a mile of narrow country roads. Before they can set sail, they first need to be built. Great care must go into pouring the large concrete foundations as a single crack or imperfection could sink them before they get chance to float. Only after the luxurious upper floors are attached to the foundations, can they then call on the experience of tug boat captain, Peter Bokschoten. Captain Peter has the responsibility of towing all seven properties across the Netherlands; dodging dangerous ice flows and avoiding titanic tanker collisions. His final challenge is to guide them all into precarious-looking crane slings – where they will be hoisted onto trucks for a mile of cross country hauling, before being craned into their idyllic lake destination. Will Wim and Carin's dream home make it to the lake without being smashed, sunk or lost out to sea?