Last One

So to finish off, once all 3 bearings have been replaced, the hub is lifted back onto the back deck, the blades are all reattached in reverse order, like this.

After all blades are attached the nose cone is put on, the HLB attached and the temporarily steps removed, the main lift commences.

Check out the shadow, I like this shot.

Blades attached and the guys have earned a rest, but not a long one, as soon as we jack down and the tides are right we will be moving onto the next turbine.

I would like to thank Fugro Seacore for the hospitality they showed me onboard the Excalibur, a great bunch of hard working guys/Girls and best of all, the food was fantastic.

Some Facts.

The Arklow Bank Wind Park is the first offshore wind farm in Ireland and the world’s first commercial application of offshore wind turbines over 3 megawatts in size. It is located on the Arklow Bank, a shallow water sandbank in the Irish Sea, around 10 kilometers off the coast of Arklow with an area of 27 by 2.5 kilometres.

The project is being co-developed by Airtricity and GE Energy. In 2002, Airtricity obtained an offshore lease for a 520 MW offshore wind farm. The first phase of the project, commissioned in June 2004, consists of seven GE 3.6-megawatt generators. They were installed by the Danish offshore wind farms services provider A2SEA. Power cables were laid by Five Oceans Services. All of the turbines have a height of 73.5 metres (241 ft) and height to top of blade of 124 metres (407 ft). The blade length is 50.5 metres (166 ft) and each turbine has three blades. Each turbine weights 290 tonnes.