At a 131-year-old maritime academy along Buzzards Bay in Massachusetts, people who will build the nation’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm are learning the skills to stay safe while working around turbines at sea.
Some take to the tasks fairly easily since they're veterans of marine fields or construction. For others, it's totally new to be using fall protection and sea survival equipment, climbing from a boat onto a ladder to get to a turbine and learning how to work hundreds of feet in the air.
Vineyard Wind is on track to be the first commercial-scale offshore wind farm in the U.S. The development follows the Cape Wind project, which would’ve been closer to the Massachusetts shore but failed after years of litigation and local opposition. The students step off the pier into the chilly bay waters to learn how to safely abandon a vessel or the turbine in an emergency. They inflate a life raft, climb in, and right it when it's upside down.
“It's up and coming. To be the first commercial project in the states, that’s exciting,” he said. “To make a positive change for our country, to bring across new opportunities, that’s exactly why I’m here.”The maritime academy, founded in 1891, has historically focused on Coast Guard-approved training for professional mariners. Anticipating needs of the nascent U.S. offshore wind industry, it expanded its courses in support of offshore wind in 2019.
In neighboring Rhode Island, Danish wind developer Orsted and utility Eversource are partnering with the state, the Community College of Rhode Island and union leaders to start a basic safety training course there too. Orsted and Eversource are planning to build Spofford said he's excited the offshore wind industry is creating jobs, especially for mariners in the Northeast. There were few workboat jobs in the region after he earned his degree and license in 2009 at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. That led him to the Gulf of Mexico, where he worked in the oil and gas industry.
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