Busy Gills Harbour
23rd February 2021
Its been a busy few days at local community-owned Gills Harbour ..... sometimes in suberb sunny weather as here ... with three workboats berthed during a programme of inspection etc. works on Simec Atlantis Energy's (SAE's) sub-sea tidal stream 'world-leading' MeyGen site, just a mile in the Pentland Firth's Inner Sound from the little port on Scotland's North coast.
In the foreground is Green Quest that belongs to Green Marine (UK) Ltd of Stromness, Orkney; MD Skipper Jason Schofield.
The inner vessel berthed to the seaward is the near-new catamaran Athenia that is owned by Roving Eye Enterprises Ltd of Orphir, Scapa flow, Orkney (MD Mr Keith Bichan )
As the weather was fine the boats berthed at Gills and saved themselves the expense and buffeting that a one-hour diversion to Wick or Scrabster would have involved mainly because of the intervening tidal races where whit-water breaks daily on the appropriate tidal-stream.
Earlier this month SAE appointed renewables and civil engineering veteran Mr Graham Reid at its new CEO. One of his key tasks will be upgrading the deployment of turbines at the demonstration MeyGen site to convert it into the world's largest tidal stream array.
Bill Mowat
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Two catamaran work-boats berthed at Gills Harbour this week with the trans-Pentlnd ferry MV Alfred, also a catamaran, in the background. The larger workboat is MPC Athenia which was being used as a floating base or ROVs - remote underwater vessels, for detailed inspections on the three turbines operating at the MeyGen demonstration subsea site one and a half miles off Gills Harbour.
GILLS HARBOUR Ltd - ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING at JOHN O'GROATS VILLAGE HALL, MONDAY JUNE 13th @ 7.30 PM. GILLS HARBOUR IS THE ONLY OFFICIALLY-RECOGNISED 'ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AREA' IN NE CAITHNESS.
£10 million 'Isle of Jura' temporarily based at Gills Harbour in Far North of Scotland for her crew's debut tasks in the tidal-stream electricity field at the MeyGen sub-sea site, one mile off the little Caithness's port entrance channel. One of the UK's most modern marine renewables service vessels made her debut calls at community-owned Gills Harbour, near John O'Groats, over the 2021 Spring Equinoctial weekend.
The company behind the world-leading tidal-stream prototype power plant in the Pentland Firth's Inner Sound is set to start manufacturing a new-style turbine that is hopes will reduce the project's generating costs. Simec Atlantis Energy (SAE) and a privately-owned specialist engineering firm from Spain's Bay of Biscay coastline have jointly been conducting 'research and development' (R& D) on the project for almost a year and are now ready to give it the go-ahead.
A new generation of younger local folk look set to take over the reins of running Gills Harbour Ltd, the local company that owns and operates the busy little port on the shores of the Pentland Firth's Inner Sound that holds its AGM this Saturday (10.10.20) morning at 10:00 am. The influx of younger blood comes after two key directors of the group that had run 'Canisbay's Peoples Port' both announced their retirement from office, whilst another Gills Harbour Ltd (GHL) office-bearer has declined to seek re-election.
An 'old friend' returns to Gills Bay after an absence of manymonths. The 2,400 tonne 70 m.
Here is the Normand Cutter, the Norwegian-owned offshore construction vessel that has been the base for works on Simec Atlantis Energy's (SAE's) MeyGen site in the Pentland Firth's Inner Sound, off Gills Bay during the current neap-tide sequence, that has lasted most of the week commencing 11.08.20. Picture by retired C of S Kirk Minister the Rev Lyall Rennie, who lives at Lower Warse, Canisbay, on the shores of Gills Bay..
Scotland's most modern + environmentally-friendly, fuel-efficient ROPAX ferry ship rge MV Alfred, arrived AM today (Wed 09.10.19 at St Margarets Hope. The boat went round to Kirkwall immediately at the end of 9,000+ miles voyage from the Strategic Marine yard near Ho Chi Minh city (ex.
Gills Harbour Ltd, the community-owned body that owns & operates the busy little port on Caithness's North Coast, has awarded a remedial contract to a Wick-based company. The deal, won in a competitive tender, has gone to builders/civil engineers Messrs GMR Henderson Ltd, of Martha Terrace in Wick.
REPORT FROM GILLS HARBOUR Ltd., GILLS BAY, KW1 4YB, FOR CAITHNESS TRANSPORT FORUM OF 06.03.2019. 1) ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ZONE.
