© 2024 New Hampshire Public Radio

Persons with disabilities who need assistance accessing NHPR's FCC public files, please contact us at publicfile@nhpr.org.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
🚗 🚗 🚗 Donate your old vehicle to NHPR and support local, independent journalism. It's easy and free!

Photos: Chartering a boat to see offshore wind turbines up close

A group of people on a boat look up at an offshore wind turbine in the ocean. Some of the people are holding microphones or cameras. The turbine is one base cylinder with three blades that rotate as the wind hits them.
David Lawlor
/
Rhode Island PBS
New England News Collaborative journalists and experts observe a wind turbine in the Vineyard Wind offshore wind site near the coast of Martha’s Vineyard in Mass. on Sept. 16, 2024.

Passing Martha’s Vineyard, we first spotted them — tiny lines, like pencil scratches, against the horizon. As the waves grew a little rougher, with higher swells, the turbines came into clear view.

Journalists from the New England News Collaborative have been covering offshore wind for years, but few of us had ever had the chance to see it up close.

Wind turbines are in the distance and look like small lines or sticks on the horizon. Open blue ocean is in the foreground and is fairly calm with only small waves.
Eve Zuckoff
/
CAI
The Vineyard Wind offshore wind site seen from a few miles off the coast of Martha's Vineyard.

Vineyard Wind, under construction 35 miles off the mainland, is currently the country’s largest offshore wind project. When finished, it will have 62 turbines and produce about enough electricity for 400,000 homes.

We found a captain willing to take us out to the site, and we invited some experts to come along.

Even up close, it’s hard to describe how big the turbines are, and what they look like. Journalists on the boat tried out words like “flowers” and “statues.” Seeing them in lines, each separated by a nautical mile, it did feel like we had entered a kind of farm. The blades — longer than a football field and some touching the clouds — looked ready to harvest the wind.

On the day we visited, none were turning. On July 13, part of a blade broke off into the ocean. The companies behind the project have been allowed to resume construction, but the federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement is still not allowing them to produce power.

The industry faces other challenges, among them, concerns about how offshore wind could affect whales.

But it's clear the turbines could one day become a regular sight in New England waters. Last week, the federal government announced new offshore wind leases in the Gulf of Maine as part of the effort to fight climate change.

A man in a red shirt speaks as the woman next to him in a peach shirt looks up at a wind turbine nearby which is not pictured. The women next to them in a grey jacket is holding out a microphone recording what the man in the red shirt is saying and another man in a blue jacket next to her is looking up at the wind turbine.
Raquel C. Zaldívar
/
New England News Collaborative
WBUR reporter Miriam Wasser, second from right, asks Dr. Sanjay R. Arwade, a civil engineering professor at University of Massachusetts Amherst, a question as WBUR correspondent Barbara Moran, third from right, and Maine Public reporter Pete McGuire, right, look up at the wind turbine nearby.
The top pard of the base cylindrical structire of an offshore wind turbine. There is a spot where the wind turbine blade will be attached.
Raquel C Zaldívar
/
New England News Collaborative
A wind turbine under construction at the site.
A man in a grey jacket and a blue bucket hat speaks as a woman nect to him who is wearing a blue jacket and a green baseball hat and headphones holds out a microphone to record what he is saying. They are on a boat and the ocean is visible behind them.
Raquel C. Zaldívar
/
New England News Collaborative
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution senior scientist Dr. Michael J. Moore, left, speaks to CAI reporter Eve Zuckoff on the boat.
A view looking down from above at a wind turbine in the foreground shows a smal boat nearby and wind turbines in the background. They are all on the open ocean. The photo is shot from a drone that is in the air.
David Lawlor
/
Rhode Island PBS
A wind turbine in the Vineyard Wind offshore wind site, as seen from a drone flown by one of our journalists. The boat the journalists were on is to the right.
A barge, which looks like a large cargo ship, is elevated above the ocean surface next to the cylindrical base of an offshore wind turbine that does not have blades attached to it yet. There is a tall crane on the boat which is taller than the wind turbine base.
Raquel C. Zaldívar
/
New England News Collaborative
A specialized "jack up" barge at the Vineyard Wind offshore wind site.
WBUR reporter Miriam Wasser takes a photo of a wind turbine in the Vineyard Wind offshore wind site near the coast of Martha’s Vineyard in Mass. on Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. (Raquel C Zaldívar/New England News Collaborative)
Raquel C. Zaldívar
/
New England News Collaborative
WBUR reporter Miriam Wasser takes a photo of a wind turbine.
A man in an orange jacket over a blue button up shirt on the left holds up a microphone to a man on the right wearing a red sweatshirt and a blue and white baseball cap. the man on the right is speaking.
David Lawlor
/
Rhode Island PBS
The Public’s Radio reporter Ben Berke, left, speaks with Dr. Sanjay R. Arwade, a civil engineering professor at University of Massachusetts Amherst.
A view looking down from above at a wind turbine. There is a small boat nearby. They are all on the open ocean. The photo is shot from a drone that is in the air.
David Lawlor
/
Rhode Island PBS
A wind turbine in the Vineyard Wind offshore wind site. The photo, shot from a drone, shows the reporters' boat as the small white dash to the right.
A rectangle grey and white structure that looks similar to a boat is elevated up from the ocean surface by a yellow metal structure. There is a boat on the water to its right.
Raquel C. Zaldívar
/
New England News Collaborative
An offshore wind substation in the Vineyard Wind offshore wind site.
A woman in a long sleeved black shirt and red pants holds up her hand as she speaks to another woman in a gray shirt and a green and white striped button up long sleeve shirt. A man to her right wearing a blue jacket and green baseball cap is listening.
Raquel C. Zaldívar
/
New England News Collaborative
Amber Hewett, Senior Director, Offshore Wind Energy at National Wildlife Federation, left, speaks to Maine Public Editor Molly Enking, center, and Maine Public reporter Peter McGuire.
A row of wind turbines are on the open ocean with two boats nearby. The boats are quote large but appear small near the turbines which are very tall.
Raquel C. Zaldívar
/
New England News Collaborative
Boats near the wind turbines in the Vineyard Wind offshore wind site near the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. Some of the blades are in the clouds.

Raquel Zaldívar is a bilingual visual journalist at the New England News Collaborative, where she produces visual stories and collaborates with journalists throughout the New England region.
Cori Princell is managing editor of the New England News Collaborative, where she works with editors and reporters at ten public media stations on collaborative and regional stories.
Related Content

You make NHPR possible.

NHPR is nonprofit and independent. We rely on readers like you to support the local, national, and international coverage on this website. Your support makes this news available to everyone.

Give today. A monthly donation of $5 makes a real difference.