Monster 73-metre turbine blade shuts down town with the smallest street in the world

It’s as long as the Sphinx, taller than the leaning tower of Pisa – and it’s on the move.

An awesome 73-metre turbine blade made its stately progress through the tiny town of Wick on its way to a wind farm in the far north of Scotland.

What made the journey particularly impressive is the blade had been raised to its upright position so it could get through the tight streets from Wick’s harbour, where it had arrived.

It was carried on a specialist vehicle called a ‘blade lifter’, which is a trailer with 14 sets of wheels. It was joined by support vehicles and a police escort to control the traffic as the procession inched through the town at walking pace.

Blade lifter journeys are dependent on the weather. Specifically, the wind speed needs to be below nine metres a second. Monday’s operation went ahead in sunny conditions with a light breeze.

Onlookers gathered at various points to watch the slow but steady progress of the blade as it towered above the rooftops at a steep angle, passing ‘the shortest street in the world’ at Wick’s Ebenezer Place.

Once outside the town, the blade was switched to more conventional trailers for the rest of the 16-mile journey to the Golticlay wind farm site being developed by energy company RWE.

One woman taking a video on her phone said: ‘I’m going to send this to my grandson.’

Another member of the public, watching from outside Caithness General Hospital, was impressed by the sheer scale of the operation but questioned what damage might be caused to local road surfaces.

The cargo ship Aramis arrived in Wick last Wednesday with the first set of nine blades on board. A total of 33 are due to be transported through the town by July.

An online tracker link is being provided at http://www.rwe.com/golticlay on the morning of each delivery day once it is confirmed that the deliveries will commence.

Signs advising ‘no parking’ have been placed along the delivery route in the town.

RWE is advising drivers to allow extra time for journeys on delivery days.

The company has stressed that maintaining access for emergency vehicles around Caithness General Hospital will be ‘a key priority’.