First US-built WTIV arrives as headwinds hit America's offshore wind industry

America’s first US-built wind turbine installation vessel (WTIV), Charybdis, arrived in Norfolk, Virginia, in a much different climate for the nation’s offshore wind industry than the one in which it was ordered five years ago.

At the time it was ordered in 2020, the nation’s goal of installing 30 GW of offshore wind capacity by 2030 still seemed like a possibility. A key component of that was Charybdis; the 143-m WTIV was ordered by Dominion Energy to support the installation of wind turbines at the 2.6-GW Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project -the largest offshore windfarm in the United States.

But during his second term, President Trump has targeted offshore wind from his first day in office. His administration has tried to halt or slow the development of US offshore wind projects that are either under construction or have been previously permitted. A stop-work order was issued by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) on 22 August 2025. A federal judge granted a temporary injunction lifting the stop-work order on 22 September.

“There is not a future for offshore wind because it’s too expensive and not reliable enough,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told delegates at Gastech 2025 in Milan on 10 September.

In one of its latest moves, the Trump Administration has asked a US federal judge to rescind approval of a key permit that was issued under the Biden Administration for US Wind’s 2.2-GW Maryland Offshore Wind project.

Charybdis was constructed by Seatrium AMFELS in Brownsville, Texas, and docked at the Port of Virginia last week. McAllister Towing’s harbour escort tugs, Jane McAllister and Alicia F. McAllister were on hand to assist in docking the mammoth vessel. Named for a mythological sea monster, Charybdis was designed to handle turbine sizes of 12 MW or larger. CVOW will see the installation of 176 wind turbines, each with a capacity of 14.7 MW, along with their foundations, three offshore substations and hundreds of kilometres of inter-array cables and offshore export cables. The vessel’s crane has a capacity to lift 2,200 tons.

According to Dominion Energy, the Jones Act-compliant vessel’s hull and infrastructure were fabricated with more than 14,000 tons of domestic steel, with nearly 10,000 tons sourced from Alabama, West Virginia and North Carolina suppliers. At peak, the project employed more than 2,000 skilled workers, who were engaged in welding, fabricating and construction activities at the shipyard.

Over its five-year construction timeline, the reported cost to build the complex vessel ballooned from US$500M to US$715M. Rising costs of the project were due in part to increased financing costs and modifications needed to stiffen the vessel’s deck and reinforce its hull to support the added weight and dimensions of heavier, new generation wind turbine components.