The energy debate: Wind

Can we harness enough of its strength to solve Britain's power crisis?

By Cole Moreton

Published: 16 July 2006

Riding a rubber inflatable dinghy out to sea feels like being lashed to the bow of a galleon. You get soaked fast by the bursting waves. Sea salt stings the eyes and face. The wind is deafening as the boat picks up speed, skimming over the water and leaping into the air - hanging there for two or three seconds - before slamming back down, sending a judder through the pelvis and driving air out in a grunt. This must be what it was like for Tony Blair when he rode the same small orange rubber boat, the 12-seater Warlock Voyager, out of Whitstable Harbour last week to see the wind farm seven miles out to sea.

"You may feel a bit of a pull backwards," said the skipper Graham Hall before we set off to replicate the journey. He wasn't joking. The waves are almost non-existent today, apparently - a swell of no more than half a metre - but they don't seem that way to a landlubber holding on for dear life. There is no time to be sick, though: the motion is like a series of punches to the midriff.

Article Length: 1946 words (approx.)