This is kind of a quickie, but an article caught my eye this afternoon, and some info buried towards the end of it even more so, and you know how that rabbithole thing works.
It all has to do with something called the Hollandse Kust Zuid wind farm. Two years ago, when the video below was made, it was on its way to being the world’s largest wind farm. It’s located 18-36 km off the coast of the Netherlands, right where the squeeze starts to happen for the English Channel.
As the poor stuttering-through-pronouncing-the-Dutch podcaster tries to say it, the name literally means ‘Holland South Coast’ or something close.
The company developing the farm is Vattenfall, and it was supposed to have 140 turbines, but…whoops. As the fellow matter-of-factly says, ‘If you remember, Jodi, they had that ship go astray…’
Well, actually, no. I don’t remember hearing anything about any ship hitting a turbine ever, but as you can see from the location of the farm, it’s in a location with a tremendous amount of shipping.
So what happened in February of 2022, before they even finished getting all the turbines in the water?
A bulk carrier went adrift and smacked the crap out of one of the brand new monopile foundations.
Julietta D, the bulk carrier that had drifted in the Hollandse Kust Zuid wind farm offshore the Netherlands for several hours on Monday, 31 January, collided with one of the wind turbine monopile foundations at the 1.5 GW wind farm.
As you can see, the seas were not at all friendly that day, and not to have your steering?
ERMAGERD
Miraculously, there was no one working on the foundation at the time, and the Dutch Coast Guard evacuated the entire crew of The Julietta D safely. They did eventually manage to get the ship under control using tugs.
So the farm was 139 turbines instead of 140 in a busy shipping lane.
Makes me think of all those windfarms planned for the approach to New York Harbor.
But accidents like this are rar…oh.
The offshore supply vessel (OSV) Glomar Venture has hit the base of an offshore wind turbine in the Dutch North Sea, leaving two crewmen injured in the accident.
The Royal Netherlands Sea Rescue Institution (KNRM) revealed that it received a call for a medical evacuation from Glomar Venture at around 7 am local time on 20 April.
The incident took place about 15 miles offshore from Callantsoog, located on the Netherlands’ northwest coast.
The turbine was damaged severely enough that it had to be taken offline.
…In April, an 11 MW turbine was taken offline after damage caused by an allision involving the 4,700-hp Glomar Venture (built 1990) offshore supply vessel, reportedly leaving two crewmen injured.
It was the ‘tense’ situation I saw a report about today that caught my eye.
It sounds as if they were having themselves a helluva time at sea in the middle of another storm, trying to keep a disabled, almost 500-foot-long oil tanker from wallowing its way into the same dang wind farm.
The Eva Schulte came within a click of potentially wiping out God knows how many turbines and a potential environmental disaster.
Swedish energy developer Vattenfall has described a “tense” situation as a German tanker lost power and came within 1 km of its Dutch wind farm.
Schulte Group’s 16,700-dwt Eva Schulte (built 2010) got into difficulty over the weekend in a storm near the Hollandse Kust Zuid facility.
The laden 145-metre ship was drifting towards the wind farm, with waves reaching five metres in strong winds, TradeWinds’ sister newspaper Recharge reported.
YOICKS
Heart in your throat time. especially as the crew was still on board.
And a reality check.
…A failed anchoring attempt left the vessel just one kilometre from the wind turbines, with its crew members still on board, according to a LinkedIn post by strategic communication advisor at Vattenfall, Martin ter Braak.
“The situation was tense,” ter Braak posted. “Thanks to the swift and courageous response of the (Netherlands Coastguard and the Royal Netherlands Sea Rescue Institution), a towing connection was successfully established around 23h15, stabilising the vessel and preventing a potential disaster.”
He described the incident as is a stark reminder of the growing complexity and risks on the North Sea.
“With increasing maritime traffic, expanding offshore infrastructure, and more frequent extreme weather events, the margin for error is shrinking,” according to ter Braak.
THE MARGIN FOR ERROR IS SHRINKING
Look where the Biden administration approved just one of the plethora of East Coast/Mid Atlantic/New England offshore farms – smack in the middle of the approach into New York Harbor at the mouth of the Hudson River.
Trouble for Empire Wind: 147 turbines planned 19 miles off NJ now under federal review over potential violations. https://t.co/Wl85cZG2re pic.twitter.com/ud3yhw2FCJ
— SaveLBI (@saveLBIorg) October 2, 2025
This is the view of another approved farm off the Jersey Coast.
Ever wanted to know what off Shore Wind would look like in New Jersey?
Here’s what these hulking wasteful useless behemoths tainting our horizon off the Coast of Long Beach Island, Brigantine, Atlantic City, Ocean City, & Camp May would look like
Fight to protect your shores NJ pic.twitter.com/gyfprv1rUg
— Wake Up NJ 🇺🇸 New Jersey (@wakeupnj) October 25, 2024
Sitting on those same beaches, you can see shipping making its way to and from the area ports – right through the proposed farm footprint.
Even with disruptions of port strikes and such things, 2024 was the third busiest year for New York, and that’s not even taking into account the port operations in Newark, Jersey City, and Bayonne.
…In spite of those numerous hurdles, the port’s cargo-handling performance was impressive as 2024 ended as its third-busiest year on record. The Port of New York moved 8.7 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units), an 11 percent jump from 2023 and behind only the pandemic-driven cargo levels seen across 2021 and 2022.
Three major shipping incidents with one wind farm, and I haven’t even started looking for other examples.
This could have been a real mess.
Now, I know I have an active imagination, but the same offshore farm in a busy shipping lane has had nearly three strikes in less than three years?
I hope the administration sticks to its guns.
If we thought our job in pushing back against the Academia/media/Democrat censorship complex was over with the election, think again. This is going to be a long fight. Ed, David, John, and I are here for it.
COME AT US, BROS!
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