July 19, 2010
CSL chosen for Wind Turbine transportation

Courtesy of Birchglen First mate, Remy Revert

On Saturday July 10, the MV Birchglen sailed past Montreal and a lot of folks noticed her impressive cargo of massive wind turbine pieces

CSL was recently awarded a contract to carry up to five loads of wind turbine pieces between July and October 2010.

Nacelles in cargo hull

By shipping these pieces, CSL will effectively remove 402 trucks from the highways between Cacouna and Chicago, which is equivalent to 700,284 truck-kilometres or driving 17.5 times around the Earth! That reduces a lot of traffic congestion and pollution since greenhouse gas emissions from ships are one-tenth of those generated by trucks (grams/ton-kilometre).

The first shipment began loading on July 6, to gray skies and a slow pace. By mid-morning, the weather turned for the better while loading momentum picked up. Everyone involved displayed an upbeat attitude and some compared the cranes lifting these massive pieces to a “dance of elephants”.

Hubs all tied down

By the end of the first day, three cargo holds had been filled and blade packs were being loaded on deck. It seemed everyone on site had a camera of some sort to record the loading process! The final destination of these pieces is a wind farm in Bloomington, Illinois.

We suspect this voyage may be the largest single shipment of wind turbine pieces ever carried on the Great Lakes. This is a new and exciting project for CSL.

Birchglen on Lake Ontario, courtesy of Rt. Hon. Paul J. Martin's 2nd engineer, Willem van Maanen