Whither and Weather - 54° 53' 31" N 12° 02' 39" E

A new appreciation for me is the need for constant surveillance of the weather.

Kate has been keeping a weather-eye on an approaching storm which is about ten days away, so we left Ystad for a long journey south and west while wind and wave permitted.

Our route

Upon the way we skirted the EnBW Baltic 2 Wind Farm. So since I work in renewables this offered an excellent chance to distract ourselves from the buffeting waves worked up by the wind.

EnBW Baltic 2 Wind Farm

The wind farm was built in 2013-15 and has 80 Siemens 3.6MW generators to produce 288MW of power. The EnBW website says this can provided the needs of 340,000 households, and who am I to doubt them.

The project is in shallow water ranging from 25-45m, so turbines have either a monopile or a jacket support. The foundations are driven between 36 and 55 meters into the seabed in order to ensure that they are securely anchored. 

Wind turbine foundation options

Each hub is 78m above the sea surface and the turbine blades are 60m long, so the tip is 138m above sea height. Adding all these up, the total stack is 238m; in comparison the Eiffel Tower is 330m.

In response to a question from Sean, specialist crane ships are moored alongside and raise the turbine nacelle followed by each blade. At sea, in normally windy locations, repeated 80 times. Awesome engineering!

Impressive!

Energy from each turbine is at 33,000 volts (33kV) which is stepped up to 150kV and exported to the mainland via 2x submarine cables.

Unfortunately from that point the wind wasn't playing nice so we had a long motor into Stubbekøbing, but not without some excitement.

Despite the pretty sunbeams, there is something rather ominous in that cloud -
we were soon to find out what.

Normally I take my cues from how worried Kate and Sean look. When they grin, I grin. But a squall picked up and lightning came with it. Kate does not like lightning around her boat. She did not grin until we were past it. The squall however did produce an impressive wind gust speed at the top of the mast - nearly 53 knots which is 98 km/hr, a new boat record.

159° wind shift and a couple of 50kn+ gusts - sporty!

Finally the squall passed and providence beckoned.

We also approached the channel over a sand bank, but due to the shifting nature it wasn't clear whether we'd make it. But with slow motoring and careful helmsmanship we made it over with about a metre to spare and got into port late in the evening.

This translates to the charts may
not be accurate through this area
due to moving sandbanks.