Weather plays fast and loose with men plotting huge Dogger Bank windfarm

It’s shortly before 7am, the sun has yet to rise and aside from a lone man jogging along the seafront there’s little sign of life in Scarborough.

The amusement arcades, winding down after another busy holiday season, won’t open for another few hours, the shutters are still down on the stalls selling cockles and muscles, but amid the dozens of pleasure boats moored in the harbour, there is one vessel where work is just beginning.

Much like they have done for the last three and a half weeks, the six- man crew of the Titan Endeavour have just finished their first cup of coffee of the day and are listening to the Shipping Forecast. It confirms what they already knew. Once again the weather and predicted near gale-force winds has upset their best-laid plans

Still, when you are part of the world’s biggest environmental survey, which involves trying to capture data miles out to sea, stormy conditions come with the job.

“It’s frustrating, but there’s nothing you can do,” says skipper Jeff Steele, pointing to what looks to the untrained eye like a meaningless grid of numbers and arrows. It’s the latest update from their online wind guru. By lunchtime the gusts will likely be measuring up to eight on the Beaufort scale, just three steps away from a violent storm.

“The boat could cope, but it’s just too choppy to get any accurate readings from our equipment. If the weather had been on our side we might have been done by now, but it never is, so we are looking at another three weeks work here, possibly more.”

The activity off the East Coast is the result of the decision back in December 2009 to award the Forewind consortium the right to develop Dogger Bank, a giant sand bank some 60 miles from Scarborough, into what looks set be the biggest off-shore wind farm.

If the plans come to fruition, 1,800 off-shore turbines will be installed across an area the size of North Yorkshire, supplying electricity to seven million homes and providing 10 per cent of all the UK’s electricity needs, but before the blades begin to turn, a huge environmental survey needs to be completed.

While the farm won’t be visible from the shore, the impact it could have on both the marine wildlife and the trawlers, which have been fishing in and around Dogger Bank for centuries, has been at the forefront of many people’s minds since the plans were first laid on the table. It’s why four experts have been stationed out in the North Sea recording, often for the first time, the populations of everything from sea birds to sand eels and mapping each square mile of the bed beneath.

On a good day the crew of the Titan Endeavour spend 10 or more hours at sea, but today they are having to work closer to the shore. As the boat gently rocks in the more sheltered waters of Scarborough’s South Bay, each of the crew has their own specific task. As they go through a series of checklists, the sonar equipment ticks away producing what looks like a very complex lie detector reading. In fact, it’s mapping the various levels of gravel, sand and rock which make up the ancient sea bed and, much to everyone’s relief, there have been few surprises.

“Boring data is good data,” says Les Dukes, who is Forewind’s onboard representative. “It means we have found no hidden surprises.” Bright yellow and impossible to miss, Titan Endeavour has become a familiar sight to the resort’s dog owners and sea front café owners, but it represents just a small fraction of the expertise which is being poured into the survey.

At the peak of research there have been five larger boats each with a crew of 30 at sea for up to six weeks at a time as well as three light aircraft carrying out monthly marine wildlife counts.

Forewind has described it as the largest and possibly the most ambitious survey ever carried out and believe the results may prove groundbreaking for an area that has previously been very poorly surveyed. Partly, it’s about planning where the turbines will go and where best to lay the cables which will connect them to the National Grid, but it’s also about ensuring that the delicate marine habitat which exists on Dogger Bank isn’t adversely affected.

It’s the area’s shallow waters which have made it a prime site for a wind farm development, but it’s that very same environment which has also attracted large populations of crabs, starfish, clams and sand eels. It’s their presence which some say is reason enough to designate it a Special Area of Conservation.

Proposals to do just that have recently been submitted to the European Union and while it may take months for a decision to be made – fishing organisations have already registered their opposition to the move which they say is unnecessary and if rushed through could further damage an already fragile industry – it means Forewind has to tread carefully.

“What we want to do is produce a detailed map of the area, so we can then identify the best places to install the turbines,” says Simon Franey, the company’s operations manager. “We have obviously been following the SAC move closely and basically everything we do assumes that it will be designated an area of geological importance.

“When you talk about a wind farm the size of North Yorkshire, people tend to think that there will be turbines as far as the eye can see, occupying every last bit of Dogger Bank, but that’s not the case. It’s a vast area and the turbines will, in fact, only occupy a small fraction of it. We hope that the work we are doing now, whether it be drilling bore holes to analyse the material which makes up the seabed or the plotting of sea bird populations will mean that we can avoid developing on environmentally sensitive areas.”

While most of the those working for Forewind have been gathered from various parts of the country, Jeff hails from Wales, Les from Great Yarmouth and Simon from Reading, there is one local on board. Bill Colling was the son of a Scarborough fisherman and he knows more than most the importance of Dogger Bank.

“When I was growing up everyone used to have a connection to the fishing industry,” he says, looking up to his father’s old house, which overlooks the harbour. Bill is now employed as the boat’s fishery liaison officer, ensuring that the Dutch, Danish and British fleets are aware of the research team’s presence. “That’s all changed and the sea is no longer just about the trawlermen. “We have to be able to co-exist and there doesn’t seem to be any reason why the wind farm and the fishing fleets can’t operate side by side.”

While today all seems calm among the various interested parties, it’s not always been the case. For the past 300 years Dogger Bank has been the scene of hard fought naval battle – from a Russian attack on British fishing boats at the turn of the 20th century to the sinking of a German ship during the First World War – and the survey vessels have already pinpointed a number of previously uncharted shipwrecks.

“Sadly we haven’t found any treasure,” says Jeff. “But I guess there’s still time.”

A figure hasn’t been put on how much the environmental survey is costing. However, with the final development saving the country 13.7m tonnes in CO2 emissions and some claiming it could start an oil-bonanza-style revival for coastal towns which have lost their traditional industries, many see it as a price worth paying.

For now, all that is a long way off and for the crew of the Titan Endeavour it’s back to their charts, their graphs and one more cup of coffee.