Heaven's Door by Michael Knaggs Page A

everything would be in place in eighteen months. It meant that every week counted.”
    â€œSo they dumped everything they didn’t need in the sea on the way over?” said Douglas, with a smile.
    â€œNot quite, but it saved us two weeks, which was the time it took to get it from the Gulf to here. You would have loved that, Douglas. You probably know we used the
Mastodon
to bring it across, the largest heavy-lift vessel in the world. If you ever get chance to see that … Anyway, while we were in transit we removed the twin drilling derricks from the production deck. We dropped them onto rafts and floated them back to the Gulf along with everything else on the deck.”
    â€œYou were on board?”
    â€œThat’s right. Once we’d cleared the deck, my job was to get it ready for the accommodation. In the end, we missed our final deadline by just three months, but it was still an amazing achievement.”
    They looked ahead at the huge box-like structure, tapering slightly inwards as it rose above the main deck. They were close enough now to make out windows in the sides and a collection of wires, panels and masts on the top,
    â€œThere are eight hundred identical apartments completely surrounding the main deck to a height of ten storeys, eighty on each level, twenty along each side. So the whole encloses the deck like the sides of a box. It means there’s no way off the deck except back into the accommodation block.”
    â€œWhat are those things sticking out from the sides?” asked Calum, pointing to a number of large metal sheets secured at various angles to the walls of the block.
    â€œWind deflectors,” said Mike, “They move in response to changes in wind direction. Just a precaution more than anything, to reduce the impact of the wind on the flat surface of the walls.”
    â€œAnd all that stuff on top?”
    â€œSolar panels and aerials. And, of course, the security fence. I can absolutely guarantee nobody’s going to get over that.”

    *

    Half a mile from the platform, PTV1 slipped inside the ring of fifty-five massive wind turbines that formed a circle round the platform spaced at 100-yard intervals around the circumference.
    â€œJust about the biggest challenge of all was powering the thing,” said Mike. “And for me probably the highlight of the whole project.”
    â€œHow big are these things?” said Lawrence, craning his neck to look up at the closest one.
    â€œThree hundred and fifty feet from the surface to the top of their towers and five hundred feet to the tip of a vertical blade. Biggest we could get and, along with the solar panels and wave energy converters, more power than we need. So we’ll be supplying the NTS and the MOD on Hirta once we’re set up to do it, and we can store any surplus. There’s talk of getting a cable to the Long Island in the future. I guess that will depend on how many platforms we end up with out here.”
    They could now clearly see the receiving floor, which was suspended thirty feet below the main deck.
    â€œThat’s the only point of access onto the main structure,” said Mike. “You get across to it from the satellite platform. There’s no other way onto it. Except by parachute, I suppose,” he added.
    At exactly 7.25 am, they passed underneath the massive construction and docked with the lifting deck of the satellite platform. This secondary structure comprised a huge single column, with a 120-foot-square cross-section, rising vertically out of the sea next to the main platform to the level of the recreational deck. Seen from above, it formed the points of an equilateral triangle with two of the columns of the main platform. It was secured to each of these by steel girders every twenty feet of its full 300-foot height. The satellite platform was essentially a lift-shaft from sea level up to the level of the receiving floor. The thirty feet of the column