It may not be as challenging as swimming the English Channel, but a British citizen, apparently desperate to obtain an American work visa, swam across the St. Clair River from Ontario on June 5, only to apprehended by Port Huron Police in the area of the Blue Water Bridge. The man must have been a skilled swimmer because the St. Clair River, which has a current that moves 182,000 cubic feet of water per second, is no easy challenge.
The river’s current intrigued researchers from the University of Michigan several years ago who imagined how to harness the power of that river to create hydroelectricity. The result was “Vortex Induced Vibrations to Generate Hydroelectricity” (VIVACE) developed by mechanical and electrical engineers, as well as a scholar in the U-M Department of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering. After more than a decade of research and development, VIVACE, weighing 12 tons, was submerged in 26 feet of water in the St. Clair River in 2016. The developmental challenge is to create a unit that will withstand decades of the river’s current underwater.
I know a little about the power in that river. On a hot day similar to the afternoon that the British swimmer crossed the international waterway, when I was much younger and more risk averse, I jumped into that blue water that looked so inviting. I came up feeling the rush of the current. In seconds I was 50 yards downriver. Fortunately, I was close enough to the shoreline to grab a rung on a metal ladder. Not something I wouldn’t recommend doing…
Post by Dennis Archambault
Photo of the Blue Water Bridge by Brian Wells/Port Huron Times Herald
