Deepwater Wind Ocean Barge Accident - Was The Barge Too Small ?

Deepwater Wind Ocean Barge Accident - Was The Barge Too Small ?

Is Deepwater Wind Using the wind turbine barge R/D MacDonald to build its project ?

In the wind turbine business the public has too look for what doesn’t get published and what is not reported in the news. The name of the barge involved in the Deepwater accident was left out of every news story for the past four days raising the question why not tell the public the name of the barge.

This leaves the reader to deduce something embarrassing or bad news about the accident. If everything had gone well and there had been no accident we would be reading puff news stories with the name of the barge, engineers and company that built the turbine. -The name of the barge remains unknown today.

The news media does not print bad news about commercial wind. They told you only there was an accident (just before the weekend).

Falmouth, Massachusetts residents were never told about noise issues prior to the installation of land based commercial wind turbines. The wind industry, news media and our politicians have established a long record of omitting bad news that could affect our health and property rights and now tax money being taken from our pockets using bonds to build the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal.

Now comes the Rhode Island wind turbine ocean wind turbine story :

According to the Jones Act, any ship that sails between two U.S. points must fly a U.S. flag and has to be registered in the country. Once an offshore wind turbine foundation is installed ‒ it counts as a port .So they built a tiny ocean jack up barge to fit through the New Bedford hurricane gates and work within site of Marthas Vineyard on the Cape Wind project using 3.6 megawatt turbines

The Deepwater Wind project in Rhode Island has turbines twice the size of Cape Wind at 6 megawatts and its out in the ocean !

The R/D MacDonald is the only US built wind turbine “jack-up” barge. Jack -Up barges set themselves on the ocean bottom and then jack the ship up above the ocean. The barge then uses its large crane to set the foundations

A small special wind turbine “jack-up’ barge the R/D MacDonald was built to fit through the narrow 120 foot wide legal clearance of the New Bedford hurricane gates. The special jack-up barge is the smallest in the world less than 90 feet wide. World-wide the specialized barges are 127 feet and wider. The 127 foot and wider barges are used in ocean wind turbine installations.

The New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal aka the ocean wind turbine port started out at 35 million and has mushroomed into 113 million going into phase two to move an AM radio antenna, build a rail link and purchase massive cranes. A financial fiasco.

Specifications :

R/D MacDonald Jack Up Barge -- Too Small ?

We are about to find out !

Page 13 -- • R/D MacDonald Jack-up Barge
− Weeks Marine, Inc.
− Constructed in Jacksonville, Fl
− Positioned in Camden, NJ
(Philadelphia)
− 78 ft wide
− 100 ft max water depth
− 2 m lb crane; pipe legs
− Geared for Great Lakes (St.
Lawrence Seaway)
• Potential Project: Cape Wind
− 3.6 MW turbines OK
− Max water depth OK
− Min water depth (12 ft) challenging
• Potential Project: Block Island
− 6 MW turbine – possibly too large
− Jacket foundations – too large

Folks, Has the wind industry made another mistake ? Deepwater Wind had an accident the first day !

Here is the older Barge story from June 29 ,2015 Providence Journal : http://www.providencejournal.com/article/20150629/NEWS/150629272