July 11, 2025 — One year ago Sunday, the U.S. Coast Guard got a report it had never received before.
At 7:01 p.m., about 20 miles off the Vineyard’s southern shore, large pieces of debris were scattered in the water near the Vineyard Wind wind farm.
Green and white bits of fiberglass and foam, some the size of kitchen tables, were floating in the water, and eventually, with the help of wind and tides, would make their way onto Nantucket beaches.
Nantucket charter fishing Capt. Carl Bois was one of the first people to see the bobbing detritus off the outer continental shelf when he was out on his boat the next day.
“I’ve never seen anything on the water quite like that,” he said at the time.
Not long after, Vineyarders, Nantucketers, state lawmakers and some of the highest ranking officials in Washington, D.C. learned all too well what Mr. Bois was seeing: pieces of a broken Vineyard Wind turbine blade.
On July 13, 2024, the 107-meter GE Vernova Haliade-X turbine blade on the offshore wind energy farm’s southernmost turbine snapped unexpectedly and dumped thousands of pieces of fiberglass into the ocean. Broken about 20 meters from its base, a large portion of the blade would later drop into the water, sinking to the bottom.