All of the artifacts were removed from the hull by the start of March 1997. From that point on, the archaeologists concentrated on the remains of the ship itself. The entire ship was disassembled, each timber being carefully recorded before and after its removal from the hull remains. Fieldwork was completed by May 1997, after which the cofferdam was disassembled and sold. The recovered timbers were eventually reassembled in a special cradle and vat designed at Texas A&M University's Nautical Archaeology Program, the institution in charge of the conservation of all the artifacts recovered from the shipwreck site after 1995. The hull was treated by long-term soaking in polyethylene glycol and freeze-drying, a process which took over ten years.