Not every aspect of the tidal Current energy project went perfectly without problems. At one point the project was within hours of being called off. A replacement drill bit had to be flown in and weather conditions threatened to suspend operation. The most difficult stage in the installation was the breaking of the drill casing and drill bit. One morning when attempting to attach the barge, the casing which by this time was sunk in the bedrock, twisted off, trapping the drill bit in the ground.
The conditions in August were marginal for the work at sea.
The most amazing part of thew process was that whatever the problems, the engineers proved to be very capable in meeting the challenge and coming up with a problem. This was particularly impressive in that it was the first kind of such an exercise and it was in an ecologically sensitive area at a time of year when weather could cause a stop to the process.
On August 20, 2006 the cable laying boat was deployed to start the process of laying the four electrical cables and a fibre optic cable which will take the energy generated by the turbine to the energy building on Race Rocks.
The cable laying barge is towed to the site to begin laying the cables
Photos taken by Mike Slater, Chris Blondeau and Garry Fletcher
On July 24, 2006 the drilling took place throughout the day, with ever-increasing wind speed. The following pictures were captured from the remote Camera 5 on Race Rocks.
On July 17, 2006 dredging of the overburden on the selected site was started for installation of the piling.This operation was the most environmentally invasive of the project, but it was estimated that only about 20 square metres of the bottom were disturbed. Given that this is such a high current area, within a year there were no visible changes to the are around the piling.  The following pictures were captured from the
remote Camera 5. by G. Fletcher.
On July 16, 2006 the barge was moved on site for the installation of the piling. The first stage was the deployment of anchors for the positioning of the drilling barge. I captured the following pictures from the remote Camera 5.
On July 18, 2006 Chris Blondeau and Mike Cameron dived on the west centre anchor blocks and took video of the blocks and chains and some of the effects on surrounding organisms. They also navigated on the same dive to the dredged site as well and we see the excavation and the pile of dredged materials in this video.
The current at Race Rocks had just changed to a flood – it would be getting up to 6 knots in a few hours, so it was probably at about 5 knots at this time.
Tidal Current Predictions for  Race Passage
Prediction: GraphÂ
Race Passage Current tables, 2021
Along with the installation of the Tidal Current turbine, an ADCP was installed to give real time profiles of the Currents at Race Rocks. See the attached file for the type of profile that was generated:Sample of the result of the data analysis at Site 1:
The Creation of the Race Passage Current Tables
Map of Currents at Race Rocks from ADCP tests
See the video on wave and current measurement using the Acoustic Wave and Current instrument.
Water Properties in Juan de Fuca
Field Lab on Current Studies using Drogues.
Oceanographic
Research on Mixing in upwellings
of Race Rocks
Kalle Kallestrom’s essay on The biotic associations on the Current meter Block
Stratified Tidal Flow over a Bump
Richard Dewey,et al–Interactions of stratified flow on an isolated topographic feature: a bump to the east of Race Rocks.
 MATLAB charts of barotropic currents to the east of Race Rocks.
Link to the Tidal Current Power Project
Once into the tidal generating process, the engineers found out that these generator units were no longer necessary, so they have been removed
Underwater Webcasts by the Divers
The Underwater Environmental Data Sensor Bar.
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| In December 2000, the students and faculty of Pearson College install the first of the underwater environmental data sensors | Fouling -or succession– depends on how you look at it. |
Underwater Work for the Tidal Energy Project
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| ADCP deployment for the Tidal Power Project | Deployment and Retrieval of the ADCP from the Bottom of the Channel | Succession Study of coatings and materials | Chris Blondeau and Juan Carlos video the substrate at the site of the piling installation, and test the depth of the overburden. |
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| Turbine site hydroid survey by Chris Blondeau and Juan Carlos Yabar, 2006
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Pam and Jason from Archipelago Marine do their underwater survey of the location of the Piling Drilling for the Current Energy Project. | Video on the Pearson College, EnCana, Clean Current Tidal Power Demonstration Project at Race Rocks
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In December of 2007,The Pearson College Divers installed a set of junction boxes as part of a materials testing experiment for the tidal energy project. |
