robertj
Well-Known Member
it's the crown who is the benifactor of all these windfarms on our coast.
Yes you're right veto from government won't happen as UK miles behind with renewable energy according to euro government.
IoW Windfarm Threat to Fastnet Race?
- Thread starter Cornishman
- Start date
it's the crown who is the benifactor of all these windfarms on our coast.
Yes you're right veto from government won't happen as UK miles behind with renewable energy according to euro government.
D
Deleted member 36384
Guest
Not quite! Perhaps there would be a tactical advantage, getting a bit of lift, perhaps a bit of a assistance to get up on a wave, maybe even luff your opponent into a turbine induced header. A whole new ball game to be learned around the turbines, perhaps.
st599
Well-Known Member
And will still be miles behind. Wind is not viable in the UK. We're at the limit of prosuction wirh stations reaching the end of their lives. We need nuclear now.
Cornishman
Well-Known Member
Clearly you have never been in a big racing fleet, such as the Fastnet, beating your way against a stiff Westerly, nor are you able to imagine such a situation inside an area littered with wind turbine obstructions?
I guess you would probably motor your way through, but this is not available to those racing, or in a large gaff rigged schooner which was designed to be sailed.
[70521]
Well-Known Member
Not really.
rotrax
Well-Known Member
Yup!
rotrax
Well-Known Member
All these suppositions are not based on any serious practical knowledge of any obstuctions in this area. As sailors we are resourceful and competent at moving boats around. Considering the number of underwater hazards around,obstacles on the surface dont fill me with trepidation in any way.
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Resolution
Well-Known Member
Night time?
Anyone know what lights these turbines will show at night?
Presumably something red and flashy at the top for aircraft, but what at base level for us?
Anyone know what lights these turbines will show at night?
Presumably something red and flashy at the top for aircraft, but what at base level for us?
RobbieW
Well-Known Member
The only field I can easily look at on charts is a long established one north of Ijmuiden. That field is marked by long flash yellows at 15 metres with a visibility of 5 Nm on the corners. The field off Great Yarmouth is similarily marked.
Resolution
Well-Known Member
So are the individual turbines (approx 1 km apart) in the middle unlit?
Greenheart
Well-Known Member
Sounds like one for the vice officers.
RobbieW
Well-Known Member
You're trying to compare something that is still very much on the drawing board with existing installations. I dont know how old the Ijmuiden array is, the chart shows that the masts are .33Nm apart and the whole area is restricted.
I had a look for current stuff on the Thanet array, completed recently given the NtM (1223) I found referenced here. This also appears to be lit around the edges and within a restricted area - bit of a PITA as the array lies more or less on the rhumb line from E Goodwin to Kentish Knock. Navigation was certainly restricted through the Thanet array during construction, given how uppity the guard ship got late one misty November afternoon a couple of years ago
With obstructions roughly .5Nm apart, if navigation were permitted within the Navitus array post construction, they'd need to be individually marked.
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Duffer
Well-Known Member
There's a site opposing the proposals here:
http://www.challengenavitus.org.uk/
There's less than a week left to object.
One day they will develop nuclear fusion and all these windfarms will be left to rot.
http://www.challengenavitus.org.uk/
There's less than a week left to object.
One day they will develop nuclear fusion and all these windfarms will be left to rot.
chanelyacht
Well-Known Member
The key thing is what NATS (National Air Traffic) think of the scheme. They're currently the biggest objector to windfarms.
They are working on a solution to radar shadow with Raytheon, but to date it's been focussed on much smaller inland farms, rather than these huges ones - and this is by far the closest yet to the very busy southern airspace sectors.
I have no objection to windfarms, apart from the fact that we should be putting equivalent effort into tidal power, which is farm more likely to provide long term benefit.
Anyone know where the grid connection is likely to be? If it's coming ashore into the Fawley grid connection, fair enough. If it''s going to need a new station ashore, there will be some serious planning objections to that alone.
They are working on a solution to radar shadow with Raytheon, but to date it's been focussed on much smaller inland farms, rather than these huges ones - and this is by far the closest yet to the very busy southern airspace sectors.
I have no objection to windfarms, apart from the fact that we should be putting equivalent effort into tidal power, which is farm more likely to provide long term benefit.
Anyone know where the grid connection is likely to be? If it's coming ashore into the Fawley grid connection, fair enough. If it''s going to need a new station ashore, there will be some serious planning objections to that alone.
PeterR
Well-Known Member
Having just read the article on windfarms in the latest June?? copy of YM I was incensed by the inane comment by the RYA’s planning and environmental officer, Caroline Price, that “Navigating through operational windfarms does not create significant additional risks.”
This statement is presumably based on the results of their recent survey which indicated that 80% percent of people who had navigated through a windfarm did not have any problem doing so.
Having recently sailed round the UK the only extant windfarms I can see anyone having any reason to sail through are the ones on Kentish Flats and the Foulgers Gat passage through the London Array. I would agree that in reasonable weather and good visibility passing through these is not much of an issue. (Although Fulgers Gat has a pylon plumb in the middle of what used to be a straight through route)
However, navigating these small farms in relatively sheltered water is one thing. Sailing through the bigger farms envisaged in Phase 3 will be another thing altogether. How can anyone claim that sailing in rough weather into an area of many square miles with unlit steel pylons subject to cross tides of 2 to 3 knots is just as safe as sailing through the same area without the man made hazards?
One sailor who had crossed a farm a night time said the pylons appeared out of the gloom in plenty of time. I am sure they do on many nights but I have often sailed on nights so black I could not even see the bows of the boat let alone an unlit pylon.
The article says you can see them on your radar. True (if they have not been hidden by a rain squall) but who wants to sail for mile after mile with their head down, eyes glued to the radar screen. In practice the bigger farms will become self imposed no go areas for the majority of yachtsmen if they cannot be safely cleared in daylight and good weather.
I do not expect anyone to change their plans for building offshore windfarms just because I don’t like them but neither do I expect the RYA to tell me there is no more risk to sailing through one than in normal navigation. I suppose it depends what they mean by normal. Passing through a windfarm is certainly no more dangerous than a navigating an unlit rock strewn channel but no one in their right mind would do that in bad weather or at night by choice.
Plomong
Well-Known Member
My reading of the state of technology and costs concerned is that the navitus plan is pushing too far beyond what is known and economic. Just think of the problem from the point of view of a tenderer to such a project. Big unknown: new untried foundation design to be factored in = big "just in case" factor in the pricing.
And don't tell me that 50m has been done elsewhere already in sheltered waters on a trial basis. Has it ever been done in the English Channel or anywhere similar in 50m at an economic cost ??? I very much doubt it. End of Navitus project -- all IMVHO.
Plomong
Twister_Ken
Well-Known Member
Portland Bill is on the way to the Rock as well, but we seem to manage to find a way around it.