Ship's arrival highlights Salem's role in wind power - The Salem News

Ship's arrival highlights Salem's role in wind power | News | salemnews.com

SALEM — As a captain for Eastern Point Pilots, Robert Blair once helped lead coal ships into Salem Harbor to supply the Salem power plant. His late father did the same before him.

This week Blair helped to pilot a different kind of ship into the same harbor — one that represents a new kind of energy production and the key role that the city of Salem is playing in its implementation.

“This is the future of the port,” Blair said Tuesday as he looked out at the massive Sea Installer, a 21,000-ton vessel that was docked at Salem wharf. “The sailing ships are all gone. The coal ships are all gone. This is for the next century.”

Blair was among those in attendance for a ceremony marking the arrival of the Sea Installer, a ship that will be used to build the country’s first large-scale offshore wind project off Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.

The boat will only be in Salem for a few days for inspection, and won’t be back again. But officials took the opportunity to use it as a majestic backdrop for an event touting the future of offshore wind and Salem’s part as a key base of operations for not only Vineyard Wind but hopefully future offshore projects.

The Sea Installer was docked right next to an empty, 40-acre field where a company will soon start building an offshore wind marshalling terminal. Components for wind turbines will be shipped to Salem, assembled, and then shipped out to ships like the Sea Installer that will perform the actual construction of the turbines out on the water.

Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll, the former Salem mayor, and other officials couldn’t help but point out the symbolism of the history of the marshalling terminal site, which is on the site of the former coal plant and next to the natural gas plant that replaced it.

“Literally there were coal piles right behind me, 30 feet behind me,” Driscoll said. “In one lifetime we’re going to go from having one of the dirtiest coal plants to one of the more efficient natural gas plants to a clean energy future led by offshore wind.”

The ceremony included officials from Vineyard Wind, the project that the Sea Installer is headed out to build, and the DEME Group, the company that owns the ship. According to Klaus Moeller, Vineyard Wind’s CEO, the ship has 300-foot-long “legs” that will elevate it above the water and move the turbines from the ship onto their foundations.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” Moeller asked, gesturing to the ship as the crowd broke into applause.

Driscoll said Vineyard Wind and its 62 turbines will produce enough energy to power 400,000 households. Salem Mayor Dominick Pangallo described it as “20 Salem’s worth.” Moeller said he’s hoping the project will be done by next summer.

“In a matter of months, when you turn on the lights you will be drawing on wind power,” Driscoll said.

Graham Tyson of Crowley Wind Services, the company that will operate the marshalling terminal in Salem, said “few if any places in the U.S. East Coast” can offer the location, space and access that Salem has to support offshore wind farms. He said the company hopes to break ground on the marshalling terminal this fall.

Officials pointed out that Vineyard Winds will be built by union labor. Frank Callahan, the president of the Massachusetts Building Trades Council, said workers had been resistant to tearing down the Salem coal plant and were skeptical that a clean environment could produce good jobs.

“We’re here today as proof in the pudding that we can do both,” he said.

Staff Writer Paul Leighton can be reached at 978-338-2535, by email at pleighton@salemnews.com, or on Twitter at @heardinbeverly.