Assessment of the Safety of Fishing Using Various Types of Fishing Gear in California Offshore Wind Lease Areas

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

More than 300 offshore wind hull and mooring designs have been reviewed by classification societies. With the recent auction of lease blocks offshore of California, five offshore wind developers have site control and are evaluating the various hull and mooring concepts. Members of the fishing industry are interested in the potential effects of these future wind farms on their ability to fish safely within the leased areas. The following paper investigates the effects on fishing risk from the range of floating foundations currently being proposed by designers and includes: the implications of mooring design, turbine spacing, and the depth of array cables. The implications of design choices on the safety of specific fishing gear are discussed. For example, interconnected mooring lines within 25 m of the surface present challenges for midwater trawling. The various hull and mooring concepts pose different levels and types of risk. For instance, a tension leg platform (TLP) with taut mooring lines has a lower likelihood of contact with fishing gear than a semi-submersible hull concept with catenary mooring lines. The TLP concept encapsulates much less underwater volume and has a smaller footprint on the seabed. In addition, TLP mooring lines are anchored to the ocean floor without significantly diminishing underwater clearance for fishing between turbines. In addition to hull and mooring design, other aspects discussed are turbine spacing and the depth of the array cable. These three aspects provide a comprehensive perspective on how floating offshore wind may affect fishing safety in the waters offshore of California.