Roger Long wrote:
wrote
Here is the owner's website. Very interesting vessel.

http://www.aquasurvey.com/


It's not a new vessel at the OP indicated. The hull is basically a steel
barge so there's no way it broke up due to wave action. I think the key in
the post above it that it sometimes took them several hours to pull the legs
out of the mud. If one or more were stuck and the hull was in the water,
the great leverage could have broken the hull due to lots of previous
stressing and corrosion due to age.

You would be in a tough spot with a boat like that with shortened legs if
the waves got bigger than forecast and started hitting the hull. Can't go
up because the legs are too short, can't go down because the waves will
start throwing the hull around with legs stuck in mud.

Too bad. It was a good research program. If only they had put the full
length legs on deck for the delivery north.

--
Roger Long




Yes, it is a pity. They will probably just go ahead with the project
without the study. They would have probably built it anyway.

BTW I just read an article about a couple of off shore wind turbine
projects in Britain. It seems the rising cost of material is
outstripping the ability to raise funds to build them. At least on of
the major partners abandoned the project to invest in a land based wind
farm in the US.

I also heard that some of those farms are having a real high rate of
failure, I think the turbines were crapping out. 50% failure rate in 18
months or there abouts. Given my memory almost anything is possible.

On Tue, 13 May 2008 07:40:54 -0400, hpeer wrote:

At least on of
the major partners abandoned the project to invest in a land based wind
farm in the US.

I also heard that some of those farms are having a real high rate of
failure, I think the turbines were crapping out. 50% failure rate in 18
months or there abouts. Given my memory almost anything is possible.

I live in Iowa where 5% of the juice comes from wind. Hadn't heard of
any problems. Those things are not the aircraft propellors they
resemble. There is no reason they have to be particularly light,
especially at the expense of reliability. You see quite a few
semi-trailers with three blades. Fifty footers that go on a two
hundred foot tower. They make them here in Iowa. The Brits should tqke
advantage of the distressed dollar and buy some here. I think one of
the big reasons for the fact that they are found in groups, and not
one here and one there, is the logistics of the big crane they need to
erect them. They split the big ones non boom portion lengthwise for
road travel. Big tapered pins hold them together. If you have to do
all that, you want to get more than one of them erected before you
pack up the crane.

Casady