Wind Turbine Installer Vessel Undergoes Inspection on Way to Vineyard I
by Carol Hautau
Did you see an incredible 320-foot ship enter Salem Harbor on Monday, August 7? Did you wonder what it could be? Its superstructure is so different, it’s clear it has a very specific job to do. Maybe you wandered down to the Blaney Ferry Terminal to get a closer view. What are those four large columns looming hundreds of feet above the ship’s deck: four smoke stacks? No that can’t be. Why those monstrous cranes?
If you were lucky enough to be at the terminal Tuesday afternoon, just after the tropical downpour ended and a brilliant blue sky emerged, you would have most of the answers.
Press Conference Welcomes the Sea Installer
On Tuesday, August 8, City, state, labor and corporate leaders held a press conference to celebrate this visiting ship. The Sea Installer is one of only 16 wind turbine installer vessels (WTIVs) worldwide, vessels built specifically to place offshore wind turbines on foundations already set on the seafloor. Built by the Belgian company DEME in 2012 and flying the Danish flag, the Sea Installer has been placing turbines in the North Sea for the last decade. Recently outfitted with a new crane, it made the trans-Atlantic trip to the U.S., where it will be deployed to install turbines for Vineyard Wind 1, the first commercial-size offshore wind farm to be built in U.S. waters. In a big win for Massachusetts, that first U.S. offshore wind farm sits in the waters off of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.
City, state, labor and corporate leaders held a press conference
to celebrate this visiting ship.
The vessel stopped in Salem rather than the New Bedford Offshore Wind Terminal because it is too large to enter New Bedford—one of the reasons that Salem’s unobstructed port is so important to the growing offshore wind industry. Here, the U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Customs inspected the vessel and readied it to begin work.
A Jack-Up Rig
So what are those four large columns rising above the deck? They are legs which will settle on the seabed as the 21,000 ton vessel is jacked up to form a working platform high above the sea.
On that elevated deck will be the pieces that form each turbine: the towers, the nacelles, and the blades. The two cranes on deck–the larger capable of lifting 1600 tons–will be used by a joint European and local crew to assemble the turbines. Up to 90 crew members will work in two week-long shifts.
Training and Growing a Local Workforce
The European crew is training local workers in accordance with the Project Labor Agreement (PLA) signed by Avangrid, the State and the Massachusetts Building Trades Council. The success of the agreement means the number of good-paying, family-supporting clean energy jobs for local workers will grow as our workforce develops the necessary skills.
As Lars Pedersen, Vineyard Wind CEO, said, “We’re pleased to work with DEME . . . because they understand the need to train the U.S. workforce so that we can meet the demands of this growing industry. . . . We can now build on the goals laid out in our PLA and lay the foundation for good paying U.S. jobs that will carry our industry forward.
The press conference was held in view of the now empty lot where Crowley Marine Services will soon start construction of the Salem Offshore Wind Terminal, where turbine components will be stored, assembled and readied to ship out to future wind farms in Massachusetts waters and further north in the Gulf of Maine. We won’t see many installer vessels, which do their work out at sea. But the Salem Port will have many busy years ahead, as vessels bring wind turbine components into port for assembly and then out to sea for installation by vessels like the Sea Installer.
Carol Hautau is a member of the SAFE board of directors.