Kentish Flats Wind Farm extension

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bluerm166

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Having read the news of a projected extension to this Wind Farm on the ECP site it seems to me that two additional rows of turbines on the Western edge will effectively close off the fairly major crossing route for small vessels between the Spaniard and the SW Barrow,since tidal considerations over the Kent/Essex passage will often bring you into this area around low tide.Perhaps this has been raised elsewhere but objections should surely be raised against this particular proposal.
 
I think you must be right about the impact on the crossing route. I wonder if the developers can be induced to leave a 'swatchway' (can a swatchway be between rows of turbines) like the proposal for Foulger's Gat and the London Array. Perhaps Dick has madee contact?
 
What's the beef with wind farms?

Go through them, around them, whatever. Better than lobbing up another Kingsnorth. Pleasure craft routes must surely come second to an attempt to reduce CO2?
 
tillergirl said:
I think you must be right about the impact on the crossing route. I wonder if the developers can be induced to leave a 'swatchway' (can a swatchway be between rows of turbines) like the proposal for Foulger's Gat and the London Array. Perhaps Dick has madee contact?
Click to expand...
I was one of several asked to comment on the proposals by RYA SE last week. I thought that two more rows would still leave room from the Spaniard enough to clear the E end of the Middle Sand, although detailed positions were not provided.
Actually I'd have thought transits of this area would mostly take place near HW?
As xyachtdave points out there's no reason why you can't just scoot down one of the avenues between the turbines, there's loads of room.
 
Kentish Flats Windfarm

Well I think we can both support the use of windfarms and have our views properly considered in their planning.I appreciate that the aisles leave about 500 metres net clear for navigation but I'm not sure if the design intention is for vessels to criss cross the assembly rather than follow defined routes around the edge.That's otherwise an 'open sea' area where one would hope to be under sail rather than motoring and to tack through the farm seems counter intuitive.
It's a pity that the turbines seem to require LW depths of 3.5M plus so presumably can't occupy the Middle/Redsand shallows.
 
bluerm166 said:
Well I think we can both support the use of windfarms and have our views properly considered in their planning.I appreciate that the aisles leave about 500 metres net clear for navigation but I'm not sure if the design intention is for vessels to criss cross the assembly rather than follow defined routes around the edge.That's otherwise an 'open sea' area where one would hope to be under sail rather than motoring and to tack through the farm seems counter intuitive.
It's a pity that the turbines seem to require LW depths of 3.5M plus so presumably can't occupy the Middle/Redsand shallows.
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I wasn't suggesting that the answer to your point is that we 'should' sail through the farm, I was only saying that we 'could'.
On reflection I feel I should have made a little more of the farm's proposed encroachment to the west when I responded to the RYA, so I have sent them a second response pointing out the likely difficulties for deeper-draught boats needing to follow the farm's boundary NW from the Spaniard.
 
Kentish Flats Windfarm

I welcome your additional comment to the RYA.
In terms of passing/hovering at low water I admit that I was thinking of a limited situation where one might take the ebb out of the Swale to this area and then taking a sling shot on the rising tide across to the edge of the Maplins to be ready for the cross sand route via Havengore.I admit also that we have a very shallow draft although many don't.Would be interested to know how you time the Havengore on your route to Burnham.Coming back toward the Swale seems a bit of a deadloss tidewise and the full route round the spit then seems preferable.I'm assuming a less than favourable wind of course and a modest hull speed.
 
Well, I keep my boat in a mud berth in Oare Creek, so I can only get out, at best, at HW-2.
Havengore requires a spring tide for me, so about early afternoon HW. To do what you suggest means setting off from Oare soon after midnight. I might just as well carry the ebb down to the Whitaker, the first flood up the Crouch and be at Burnham in time for a late breakfast!
When we've done the Havengore we have taken two days over the trip, stopping in Stangate Creek overnight. OK you have to fight the tide out of the Medway and NE to the Havengore route start-point.
Coming out of Havengore heading home, same set of problems in reverse!
Tidal considerations at my berth mean if I'm heading to or from the Swin I follow the 1deg E meridian between the Columbine Spit and the SW Barrow, and go straight over the top of the Middle Sand etc. The one time recently I used the Spaniard route home was a trip back from the Blackwater, aiming to get home on a 0200 tide, but came S early to get across the shipping lanes before dark. This meant not enough water for me (only 1.2m draught) so followed down the W side of the windfarm in the deeper water.
 
Sailing through the middle of the farm is fine during the day, but it all looks rather unsettling at night. I wonder if anything can be done to help this if the end one becomes the corridoor.
 
sailing through windfarms

It seems that 'sailing' through windfarms is going to become unavoidable on occasion and not always in daylight on a fairweather jaunt so it's strange that on a failsafe principle the interior turbines are not lit for navigation.Determining a 50 metre clearance zone will not always make it so.Surely they can power the odd LED.
 
bluerm166 said:
It seems that 'sailing' through windfarms is going to become unavoidable on occasion and not always in daylight on a fairweather jaunt so it's strange that on a failsafe principle the interior turbines are not lit for navigation.Determining a 50 metre clearance zone will not always make it so.Surely they can power the odd LED.
Click to expand...

they all have diesel gen-sets on board to power the device that turns themselves into the wind direction ;)
 
I quite often sail through wind farms both by day and night. I cannot see the point on adding distance to a trip by going round them. Although the inner turbines are unlit, I have always found they stand out in the gloom. There is no one out there with a tape measure so 50 meters can be give or take a bit. I find the biggest hazzard are the number fishing boats between the turbines.
Chris
 
removal of the Spaniard

The East Coast Pilot should not be surprised at the removal of the Spaniard Buoy.It lies pretty well on the South West extremity of the extension and as pointed out before the deeper route North South that it defined will now only be possible if you go through the farm.
If the developers hadn't got away with such a vague site plan and had plotted it on a detailed chart this would have been apparent from the outset.
 
Well, I am faintly surprised because it's the first I have heard of the buoy simply being removed! Nor, in fact, has the extension been 'approved' yet, as far as I know. Certainly the developers were still consulting locally very recently. I wonder if Trinity House have simply decided the buoy is not necessary any more.
As an occasional user of the route from the NW down the side of the existing farm area when I've come south near LW, I did put in an objection to the extension pointing out that this route would effectively be absorbed into it.
I will prod RYA SE again about this, I think.
(Edit: and I have now done so.)
 
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