Pix Of The Day: Long Legged Dane Tames Sea Wind
CREDIT: © Ian Davey/SuffolkCAM.co.uk
WHERE: Lowestoft, Suffolk, England. WHAT: wind farm vessel.
MAP: Lowestoft. Thumbnail click pops-up larger image.

Last week the Danish ship 'Ocean Ady' was in harbor at Lowestoft, Suffolk, on the east coast of England. Remarkably this ship has legs, and was built to install wind generator towers on the sea bed. Lowestoft is the fabrication base for the equipment destined for the construction of a wind farm on the nearby Scroby Sands. The project developer is PROWL [Powergen Renewables Offshore Wind Ltd] on a location that is owned by Crown Estates - loosely speaking, the monarchy.

OffshoreWindfarms.co.uk (a web site run by BWEA - The British Wind Energy Association) has pictures, information, downloads, and diagrams for those with further interest. We find it hard to imagine any significant development that would not attract objectors, and the BWEA discusses issues, albeit favorably as one might expect.

On his walk [web page content may change by the time you visit - if so check out the archives] SuffolkCAM.co.uk webmaster Ian Davey also recorded the construction of the generator towers. Lying in harbor that day was the Lowestoft built 'Defender', formerly the 'Al Majihad' when part of the Sultanate of Oman Navy, but now gifted back to Lowestoft as a display ship: quite a change from the Straits of Hormuz!

Readers who are really interested in men who go down to the sea in ships to lift heavy weights, may be intererested in a PDF format file available from A2SEA, the operators of Ocean Ady. The file contains the only picture we saw that clearly shows the relative size of the wind driven generators used in an offshore wind farm. Lifting the sections of one of those towers into place, then mounting a huge generator atop the tower, all out to sea even in shallow waters, is no task for the faint of heart or ill equipped.

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