What are these things at the port?

What are these things at the Pensacola Port? I think they may be large nacelles for wind turbines. Bob suggested that they may be oil rig lifeboats. I put two pictures here. The first is the things at the port and the second is a nacelle on a wind generator.

Eric, you may want to propose that question to riceme. If I am not mistaken she used to work in that field.

Admin wrote:

Eric, you may want to propose that question to riceme. If I am not mistaken she used to work in that field.

Thanks, I'll send her a PM.

Riceme says

Quote :

You are correct. They are wind turbine machine heads (the "nacelle" is actually just the fiberglass cowelling around the machine head), and those are in fact GE machines. That is more relevant than you might realize because I was downtown for drinks one time and found that the railyard was full of Vestas' machines.

_________________
Like a Star @ heaven riceme

"Happy Hellidaze!" -- riceme, 23 November 2012, AKA Black Friday

I'm hoping Rice will come join us here soon.

PBulldog2 wrote:

I'm hoping Rice will come join us here soon.

I'm here, I'm here! I finally got the link and joined with thanks to PB and EE, and also to GR for helping me to complete the registration process.

Thought you all might enjoy some of my old shots of my "babies."

I took these on the morning of 30 March 2008 on my way into the factory, so I was sitting @the stop @the end of the West-bound offramp of the I-10 waiting to turn North onto Scenic.







27 June 2009: The first turbine of the Kodiak Island, Alaska windfarm staged to be erected (set atop the tower, &c), then commissioned to produce power, sent to me from a very old family friend and colleague who managed erection of the entire project, which was considered widely in the industry -- in all regards -- to be the most difficult and challenging large project to be erected in the states. He hand-selected only the absolute very best of men to be on his team for that endeavor.



Cheers!

Those things are so big! I was driving down Scenic Highway one day and saw a bunch of them in a staging area North of the railroad tracks down by the water. I pondered on what they were for a long time and tried to convince myself they were some kind of lifeboat (as Bob thought).

Months later, I stumbled across a TV show where people were assembling a large wind generator and some shots had people inside these things putting the pieces together. It was an "Aha!" moment.

Yeah, they are not small, that's for sure. The ones in the dirt lot off the railspur were probably empty nacelles. We usually load-out of what is called "the pit" inside the factory. Driver backs his trailer in, we set the machine head right on his trailer from where it was stored right next to there. Then he pulls out and have to does all his tie-downs before he exits the gate. Again, usually. Sometimes they get backed-up and have to use the dirt lot across the street.