It took ten years before the Conoship group won their first contract. The first contracted ship was booked on June 1, 1961, the “I.T.W.A. PATHFINDER”. This was a buoy-laying vessel, which was built at the Gebr. Grol shipyard on behalf of the Pakistani government.

The order was surrounded by followers of the Islamic religion, who were clear that the traditional baptism of the ship with champagne would be seen as offensive. Expensive effort was spared to find out how the baptism should take place. Ultimately, the solution was brought by the Dutch-Islamic Society from The Hague. The ship was ought to be sanctified with water from the Islamic saints source “Lahai roi”. This holy water was then hastily taken by the returning pilgrims to The Netherlands. Just to be sure, they had brought two bottles with water, so that one of them wouldn’t unexpectedly be lost or broken along the way.

The baptism was performed by the wife of the Pakistani seed. She sprinkled the holy water from a silver scale on the bow of the “I.T.W.A. PATHFINDER”.