It's WINDSday | June 19, 2024

Celebrating the Power of Wind, Clean Energy and a Green Environment

6/18/2024 Monopile Installation Drone Video

We are proud to tout the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project (with ten monopiles now in the seabed) and are pleased to tell you how it is inspiring a new generation of learners.

In Virginia Beach, the schools annually stage the STEM Trifecta Maker Expo Challenge, this year encouraging students to design, build, and optimize wind turbines, extending what they had done for the KidWind competition but actually anchoring them on a mock “ocean floor,” or in the case of elementary students, on a floating platform.

On YNot WINDSday at the Sandler Center, we recognized some winners in each category as WINDSday Schools, enabling each to "adopt" one of the 176 electricity-generating towers rising in the Atlantic.

We presented certificates to teams and teachers from Ocean Lakes High, Great Neck Middle, and Three Oaks Elementary (Scott Sonier, Christi Lyons, and Gayle Wuesthoff, respectively).

Want your child to be in a WINDSday School?

Email season@windsdays.com and we'll tell you how.

Oh, and thanks to all who turned out for the opening concert of Ynot Wednesday, which continues weekly through August 28. You loved Brasswind, Ynot Pizza, and our fans.

On June 8, we had a field day at Chesapeake City Park, sampling sliders, beers, fries, and other fast foods at the annual COVA Magazine Battle of the Burgers. The lines were long for the small sandwiches that restaurant teams hustled to assemble. 

Chef Ryan Montgomery from Hackers in Virginia Beach was putting crispy Vidalia onions, jack cheddar, pork belly, and a jalapeno pickle on his certified Angus patty. (His concoction won the Judge’s Award for Best in Show.)

Sid Hall of Yorktown’s Water Street Grille and Riverwalk Restaurant, as well as Williamsburg’s Wavepoint, were also competing, as was WINDSday friend 165 Restaurant in Poquoson and Big Sexee (“my government name is Jan Branch”) of Pour Girls in Hampton who put a crabcake on her mini-mound of meat. “I want these southside people to know we make great food on the Peninsula.” Sold.

In a recent edition of It’s WINDSday, we told you about young Keona Dooley, who owns two locations of J&K Style Grille in Virginia Beach and a food truck. Well, Keona has had a busy couple of weeks. J&K took home a People's Choice Award at the COVA Battle of the Burgers in Chesapeake (see above), and then on June 11, Keona graduated from Salem High School with over 360 of her fellow seniors. 

The future is bright for this talented teen who credits her dad for getting her into the food business. Want to give Keona a graduation gift? Buy a waffleburger, stuffed wing, or gourmet eggroll at her College Park or General Booth Boulevard location.

CLICK HERE for directions and hours.

The VA Asian Chamber Sees Offshore Wind

as Opportunity for Its Members

My Lan Tran (middle) with Myla Astro and Linda Chang, all of Virginia Asian Chamber of Commerce

My Lan Tran came to the US in 1975 as a refugee from Vietnam and hit the ground running. For the past dozen years, she has directed the Virginia Asian Chamber of Commerce, crisscrossing the state to stage events and meet people with the singular goal of creating opportunity for 87,000 Asian-American-owned companies in the Commonwealth.

That's why she was recently at The Hive in Town Center to give Dominion Energy's Mike Lewis a chance to talk about offshore wind, which has funneled $97 million just to Hampton Roads businesses so far.

Mike listed various services, from HVAC to elevator repair, that CVOW will need in the years ahead. The VA Maritime Association's David White also presented about the Port of Virginia, which has the second-largest tonnage on the East Coast.

To join the VAAC and become part of its active membership, contact My Lan Tran, dubbed a Wonder Woman by Virginia Business in 2023. Visit her at www.aabac.org. She’ll probably come to you.

It’s Samantha Fewtrell’s accent that gives away her nation of origin. "Yes, I'm a Brit," she admits, but 25 years of her life were spent in Dubai, where she grew up with her family and entered the energy industry in 2010.

Her employer was Seajacks, the leading developer of advanced jack-up vessels, which act as a stable base for the construction and servicing of offshore structures, including wind turbines. 



Seajacks merged with Copenhagen-based Cadeler, another major vessel owner and operator, at the end of 2023. Samantha, as well as her husband, a native of Sri Lanka who remotely manages a real estate portfolio in the UAE, and their two daughters, ages 11 and 7, moved to Virginia Beach in 2022.

She is now Cadeler’s General Manager of US Operations. “My priority is supporting Dominion Energy’s CVOW project," she says. Specifically, her team oversees the construction in Texas of Dominion’s 472-foot-long Charybdis, which will install turbine towers, nacelles, and blades for the wind farm 27 miles out in the Atlantic.

It had to be to satisfy the federal Jones Act, which requires that ships that go from “US point to US point," in this case, the assembly yard at Portsmouth Marine Terminal, where it will be homeported, out to the windfarm foundations, must be US flagged and crewed.

Fewtrell is one of a growing number of foreign nationals here to work in offshore wind. Her girls were at John B. Dye Elementary in Virginia Beach this year. “It’s certainly a big change from Dubai, but we really like it here.”

Once the Charybdis arrives in Portsmouth next year, it will go to the CVOW site, plant its feet on the ocean floor, and, with a massive crane, lift 2,200 tons of equipment at a time. And with 119 berths, it can sleep plenty of crew. Fewtrell praises Dominion Energy for “building its own jack-up vessel and locking in equipment costs early. They have been a fantastic partner."

Samantha also appreciates Paige Fox at VB Economic Development for finding Cadeler co-working office space at Gather in Town Center and assisting with work visas. “We enjoy Samantha,” says Paige, “and hope her company grows and attracts other European companies to join them.” 

In the meantime, if you see Samantha walking about the Central Business District, welcome her to Virginia. She’s bringing us clean energy and a new industry that could define our region for decades. 

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