If you have a ferry ticket or one of those Ron DeSantis private flights into Nantucket this weekend, you can save yourself a little luggage weight by leaving your bathing suit, snorkeling gear, and Great White Off! Spray at home.

Turns out the beaches are closed because of sharp objects in the water, but it's not shark chomps and toofers that's the problem this time.

A shark on seal predation at Great Point on Sunday was recorded from the beach by Sandy Fink who was visiting Nantucket from Orlando with her boyfriend Ron Welter.

Fink said she was about a half mile south of Great Point Lighthouse near The Galls when she spotted the shark… pic.twitter.com/TnncVWUCan

— Nantucket Current (@ACKCurrent) July 8, 2024

It's what happens when one of your totally Green, totally environmentally friendly, totally renewable, totally OTA* expensive, largest spinning fugly thing on earth's fiberglass blade blows apart a couple of miles offshore.

My girlfriend Leslie Eastman (at Legal Insurrection) sent me an NYT write-up that had some particulars on the size of this thang.

They're ginormous.

...The damage to the blade occurred on Saturday evening at Vineyard Wind, the country’s second large-scale offshore wind farm, which is 14 miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. It’s still under construction but the first turbines began generating electricity in February.

...The turbines being installed at Vineyard Wind are enormous, featuring 351-foot-long blades that can reach heights taller than the Eiffel Tower.

The damaged blade appeared to experience a break approximately 65 feet from its root, Craig Gilvarg, the communications director for Vineyard Wind, said in an email. The blade was still undergoing testing at the time. The company quickly recovered three large pieces from the ocean, he added, and “nearly the entirety of the blade remains affixed to the turbine and has not fallen into the water.”

So, the wind farm operators are claiming "nearly" the whole blade is still attached?

Are all of these turbines defective? This is a major ⁦@VineyardWindUS⁩ fail. ⁦@NOAA⁩ should halt these projects. This is incredibly unsafe…the blades are hundreds of feet long. Dangerous.! @InkyM⁩ ⁦@InkyM⁩ ⁦@BostonGlobe⁩ ⁦@WBSM1420⁩ pic.twitter.com/RNRCosMhhh

— ACK4whales (@ack4whales) July 15, 2024

And they picked up three whole pieces out of the ocean?

That's interesting. 

A closer view of the turbine captured by a New Bedford fisherman named Anthony Seiger shows the blade might be mostly "intact," but holy crap. It's so completely delaminated it looks like a football field-long package of fettuccine.

Photo of the damaged Vineyard Wind turbine shared with me by Anthony Seiger, a commerical clammer out of New Bedford, who captured it while out on a fishing trip @NewBedfordLight pic.twitter.com/Brr2PPUiTK

— Anastasia E. Lennon (@aelennon1) July 16, 2024

This thing blew apart during testing, so it was a brand-new, not-yet-operational turbine and blades.  

A Vineyard Wind turbine was undergoing testing Saturday when one of its 350-foot blades broke, a company spokesman said Tuesday. The turbine’s manufacturer, GE, is conducting a review with federal officials to figure out the cause.

Compounding the embarrassment is the fact that this was the second set of new blades installed on this turbine because one of the blades in the first set had been "damaged during lifting" or some such argle-bargle (hat tip Global Traveler).

"Don't worry, we'll figure it out" isn't gonna cut it.

Also interesting is what the company called the failure. You know - kind of like Secret Service terms after they botch protecting a former president: the turbine experienced "an incident."

We just got the following statement from @VineyardWindUS “regarding an incident involving blade damage on a wind turbine in its offshore energy area” 👇 pic.twitter.com/I9tBREFLc7

— Nantucket Current (@ACKCurrent) July 15, 2024

Please notice the dates, too. The offshore wind company knew the turbine blade was blasted all to bits on Saturday but only notified the beach community of Nantucket on *checks notes* MONDAY.

In the height of the summer tourist season.

Of course, I think folks on the island sort of had a clue something was amiss.

More in Madaket: pic.twitter.com/7XOA7TeXMK

— Nantucket Current (@ACKCurrent) July 16, 2024

They also spotted WHALES! GREAT WHITE WHA...no, wait. That's fiberglass.

Vineyard Wind has responded to an inquiry from The Current and confirmed these are pieces of a broken turbine blade and that they have been recovered. pic.twitter.com/7eKQ0h0qfe

— Nantucket Current (@ACKCurrent) July 15, 2024

Big chunks and thousands of tiny wee ones. Ever get a sliver of fiberglass in your finger working around the house?

You'll know what this means for bare feet on a beach or them getting into towel fibers and laying on them.

Oh don't worry, it's environmentally-friendly shards, when they slice your foot open, it's green (no it isn't, yet @NYT and @CBS reads off a press release and blindly believes them!) so you should just be happy you can do your part for the planet 🌎Tell the kids, no pain, no gain

— Bonnie Brady (@mtkblb) July 16, 2024

Ever sensitive to both the environment, their bottom line, and the fact that people are really beginning to dislike them, the wind partners were tapdancing about who notified whom when. 

BUT WE TOLD THE GUBMINT!

I can hear Mr Bojangles in my head.

That should make everything better.

And for a blade that still remains "attached," someone needs to explain what all this crap is floating ashore and ruining the beaches for the week at bare minimum.

If it was an oil slick, you can bet there would be Sierra Club asterisks dressed in whale suits cavorting for network news anchors weeping from safe vantage points and Just Stop Oil would be slathering Mercedes and Porsches in the parking lot with orange paint.

But it's a pet project that all these frauds are deeply invested in, so peep not. I doubt they're even out there combing the dunes, helping lifeguards and townsfolk pick up debris.

Even the NYT's coverage is pretty sterile. Hell, those pasty-faced mask-wearers don't go to a beach anyway. What do they care?

Pretty good run-down on the current state here from this local, and he points out this is the second failure of a massive offshore turbine in recent months.

The south facing beaches of Nantucket are closed today b/c a wind turbine cruppled. It's not the first time a turbine of this type failed. Follow @ACKCurrent for updates. #ack #mapoli #ClimateScam pic.twitter.com/qY3i3vbpet

— JohnFGately (@johnfgately) July 16, 2024

In May, at one of the English off-shore wind farms, a GE Vernova blade, the same as in this "incident," crapped out.

Last week, damage was sustained to a single blade on an installed turbine at Dogger Bank A offshore wind farm. In line with safety procedures, the surrounding marine area has been restricted and relevant authorities notified. No one was injured or in the vicinity at the time the damage was sustained.

We'll see how long it takes the crews out on the island to get all the hazardous materials off the beach with enough confidence to reopen them. The town has already noted they do have a clause in the contract with the wind farm where they can sue for damages.

Vineyard Wind only has a couple of the planned 62 turbines installed and running. This is a helluva way to introduce yourself to the neighborhood. They just started turning a couple turbines this past February and, with almost 60 more turbines to go, this is hardly an auspicious beginning to an overly ambitious and expensive project.

Green grift in a nutshell.

It's almost as if someone might have been selling Massachusetts a bill of hyped-up goods when they bought off on this...almost.

 We'll see how long the friendly little island stays that way to their off-shore neighbors if new blades keep blowing apart during testing, less mind during operation, and maybe a nor'easter or two thrown in for good measure.

They DO still get weather in the Atlantic, or so I've heard.

*Out The Asterisk