The first of the 176 monopile foundations for Dominion Energy’s 2.6-gigawatt Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind has officially been installed. It is the start of offshore work for the massive project which so far is the largest undertaken in the United States.

Installation work for the foundations is underway using DEME Group’s heavy lift vessel Orion, which was previously used for the Vineyard Wind Farm off Massachusetts. Orion had just completed the installation of 29 monopiles at the Moray West wind farm in Scotland before arriving at the Port of Norfolk, Virginia around the beginning of the month. 

The massive vessel has a capacity of up to 30,000 tons with payload and is handling six of the Virginia monopile foundations at a time. The loadouts of the monopiles, which DEME reports each weigh about 1,500 tonnes, are taking place at the Portsmouth Marine Terminal, where Dominion began staging the first foundations in October 2023.

“This is a monumental day for the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind team, who have worked tirelessly to keep this project on budget and on schedule to provide our customers with reliable, affordable, and increasingly clean energy,” said Robert M. Blue, Dominion Energy’s chair, president and chief executive officer.

The installation work is happening approximately 29 miles off the Virginia Beach coast and will continue till November 1. Work will be paused till May 1, 2025, to protect the migrating, endangered North Atlantic right whale. 

DEME’s Orion is using its Vibro Hammer and Impact Hammer technology to pile drive the foundations. They are also employing the use of bubble curtains – perforated hoses that have air pumped through them – to create a wall of bubbles around the monopiles during installation to reduce soundwaves underwater.

At the same time, the second stage transition pieces have begun to arrive in Virginia. DEME reports it will begin installation of transition pieces later this year. The pieces will be transferred out to the site aboard Jones Act-compliant barges to meet the U.S. requirements and enforcement of the Jones Act on the offshore wind industry.

DEME reports working with consortium partner Prysmian they will also be working with both the export and inter-array cables. Other vessels will also join the project site for the installation of three offshore substations and scour protection

Dominion continues to emphasize that the project remains on budget and on schedule with construction expected to conclude in late 2026.

Later stages of the installation project will be conducted with Dominion’s newly built wind turbine installation vessel Charybdis, the first of her kind built in the U.S. and to be Jones Act compliant. The vessel was recently floated at the shipyard in Texas, and Dominion is denying reports in the Connecticut Examiner that the vessel is behind schedule. The newspaper reports that Ørsted which had hired Charybdis for installation work at its Revolution Wind and Sunrise Wind projects has canceled the contract telling the Examiner it has found an alternate vessel.

Dominion told the paper this means that Charybdis will be available when they need it to progress work at the Coastal Virginia wind farm. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management reports the vessel is expected to be delivered from the Seatrium AmFELS shipyard in Brownsville, Texas by early 2025.
 

It took a little longer than anticipated and turned out a little differently than many expected, but Virginia has wrapped up its transfer portal recruiting and filled out its scholarship roster for the 2024-2025 men’s basketball season. After a quiet first six weeks of the offseason, Tony Bennett went on a recruiting spree in the transfer portal and snagged four transfers (five if you count walk-on Carter Lang) in the span of 11 days. Combined with a pair of promising incoming freshmen UVA signed last fall, these seven additions have completely transformed Virginia’s outlook for next season.

It’s still very difficult to project how the Cavaliers will look next season with so many new faces and it’s an even greater challenge to predict if UVA will be better than last season (and by how much) entering the post-Reece Beekman era. But at the very least, the Hoos will certainly look different with six players heading out the door and seven new ones coming in. We’re going to try to quantify how Virginia’s roster changed with some relevant statistics and recruiting data in an attempt to clarify UVA’s outlook for next season.

To start, let’s recap Virginia’s personnel moves from this offseason:

Virginia Men’s Basketball 2024 Offseason Timeline
March 19th: Virginia’s season ends, concluding the careers of Jordan Minor and Jake Groves, who both exhausted their collegiate eligibility.
April 6th: Redshirt freshman wing Leon Bond III enters the transfer portal
April 16th: Sophomore forward Ryan Dunn declares for 2024 NBA Draft
April 17th: Senior guard Reece Beekman declares for 2024 NBA Draft
April 19th: Redshirt junior guard Dante Harris enters the transfer portal
May 4th: Florida State guard Jalen Warley transfers to Virginia
May 6th: Duke forward TJ Power transfers to Virginia
May 6th: San Diego State forward Elijah Saunders transfers to Virginia
May 7th: Vanderbilt forward Carter Lang transfers to Virginia (walk-on)
May 15th: Kansas State guard Dai Dai Ames transfers to Virginia

Here’s a look at how Virginia’s roster changed from the 2023-2024 season to the 2024-2025 season in terms of departures, additions, and returners:

Departures
Exhausted Eligibility: Jordan Minor, Jake Groves
Transfer Portal: Leon Bond III (Northern Iowa), Dante Harris (undecided)
Declared for Draft: Ryan Dunn, Reece Beekman

Additions
Incoming Transfers: Jalen Warley (G, FSU), TJ Power (F, Duke), Elijah Saunders (F, SDSU), Dai Dai Ames (G, KSU), Carter Lang (F, Vandy) **walk-on
Incoming Freshmen: F Jacob Cofie (Seattle, Washington), G Ishan Sharma (Milton, Ontario)

Returners
Guards: Taine Murray, Isaac McKneely, Andrew Rohde, Elijah Gertrude, Christian Bliss
Forwards: Blake Buchanan, Anthony Robinson

Next, here’s a breakdown of what Virginia lost and gained in terms of scoring and minutes played:

Departures
Scoring: Reece Beekman (14.3 ppg) + Ryan Dunn (8.1) + Jake Groves (7.4) + Jordan Minor (4.3) + Leon Bond (4.1) + Dante Harris (2.5) + Tristan How (0.7) = 41.4/62.9 = 65.8% of scoring
Minutes: Beekman (1114 minutes) + Dunn (935) + Groves (690) + Minor (471) + Bond (296) + Harris (329) + How (17) = 3,852/6,875 = 56.0% of minutes

Additions
Jalen Warley: 7.5 ppg, 33 games, 32 starts, 24.1 mpg at Florida State
TJ Power: 2.1 ppg, 26 games, 0 starts, 7.0 mpg at Duke
Elijah Saunders: 6.2 ppg, 37 games, 21 starts, 20.2 mpg at San Diego State
Dai Dai Ames: 5.2 ppg, 31 games, 16 starts, 20.6 mpg at Kansas State
Carter Lang: 1.8 ppg, 24 games, 7 starts, 11.6 mpg at Vanderbilt

Virginia lost 65.8% of its scoring and 56.0% of its minutes from last season. Isaac McKneely returns as the team’s leading scorer at 12.3 ppg and he and Andrew Rohde are the only regular starters returning next year. With their offseason moves, the Cavaliers have essentially traded experience for youth and potential talent. Taine Murray and Jalen Warley will be Virginia’s only seniors in their final years of eligibility and there are only five total upperclassmen on the roster. Of UVA’s seven new players, six have at least two years of eligibility remaining, including four who have three years of eligibility remaining.

Here’s Virginia’s current scholarship roster for the 2024-2025 season sorted by position and including details on each player’s eligibility remaining:

PG: Jalen Warley (1 year), Dai Dai Ames (3 years) Christian Bliss (4 years)
SG: Isaac McKneely (2 years), Elijah Gertrude (3 years), Ishan Sharma (4 years)
SF: Andrew Rohde (2 years), Taine Murray (1 year)
PF: TJ Power (3 years), Elijah Saunders (2 years), Jacob Cofie (4 years)
C: Blake Buchanan (3 years), Anthony Robinson (4 years)

While the transfer additions don’t make up for what UVA lost in terms of scoring on paper, the Cavaliers’ hope is that they’ve picked up TJ Power, Elijah Saunders, and Dai Dai Ames right before experiencing leap points in their respective careers, while Carter Lang could develop into a contributor over the course of his career and is also a great story as he returns to his hometown of Charlottesville. Jalen Warley, meanwhile, provides much-needed backcourt experience as well as versatility on both ends of the floor as a 6’7″ guard and playmaker.

Power and Saunders address Virginia’s most significant position of need at power forward, while Warley and Ames give UVA two more options to compete with redshirt freshman Christian Bliss for minutes at point guard. Some questions remain about how these relatively unproven players will come together to address UVA’s roster needs, but there’s no question that these additions have significantly improved Virginia’s prospects for the future with so many players coming in with multiple years of eligibility remaining.

From a talent standpoint, it’s almost a waste of time to estimate the impact of transfers or high school recruits before seeing how they fit in Virginia’s system. And high school recruiting rankings should always be taken with a grain of salt, but they more often than not provide fairly accurate and helpful measurements of individual talent. With that said, here’s a look at each player’s high school prospect rankings, per the 247Sports Composite:

High School Recruiting Numbers (247Sports Composite)

Incoming Transfers
Jalen Warley: four-star, No. 43 overall
TJ Power: five-star, No. 20 overall
Elijah Saunders: three-star, No. 191 overall
Dai Dai Ames: four-star, No. 64 overall
Carter Lang: three-star, No. 172 overall

Incoming Freshmen
Jacob Cofie: four-star, No. 82 overall
Ishan Sharma: three-star, No. 229 overall

Returners
Blake Buchanan: four-star, No. 76 overall
Andrew Rohde: three-star, No. 316 overall
Taine Murray: four-star, No. 89 overall
Isaac McKneely: four-star, No. 63 overall
Elijah Gertrude: four-star, No. 63 overall
Anthony Robinson: three-star, No. 268 overall
Christian Bliss: three-star, No. 162 overall

Losses:
Reece Beekman: four-star, No. 70 overall
Ryan Dunn: four-star, No. 130 overall
Leon Bond III: four-star, No. 68 overall
Dante Harris: three-star, No. 389 overall
Jake Groves: N/A
Jordan Minor: N/A

From its 2023-2024 roster, Virginia lost three former four-star prospects and two former top 100 players. The Cavaliers gained four players who were either four or five-star high school prospects and four former top 100 recruits. Virginia will have eight players who were four or five-star high school prospects and eight former top 100 recruits on its roster in the 2024-2025 season. Going strictly off of recruiting rankings (again, grain of salt), this will be the most talented roster Tony Bennett has had in his time at Virginia.

Virginia Basketball Finalizes Scholarship Roster for 2024-2025 Season

Ryan Dunn & Reece Beekman NBA Draft Combine Measurements & Results

Virginia Basketball Lands Commitment From Kansas State Transfer Dai Dai Ames
Virginia Basketball Adds Vanderbilt Transfer Forward Carter Lang
San Diego State Transfer Elijah Saunders Commits to Virginia Basketball
Duke Forward TJ Power Transfers to Virginia Basketball
Virginia Basketball Lands First Transfer Commitment From FSU Guard Jalen Warley

Virginia May Gagne

SACO – Virginia May Gagne, 95, of Saco passed away May 21, 2024 with her loving family by her side. She was born in Saco, the daughter of Clifford and Mina Morton Parker.

She attended Saco schools and graduated from Thornton Academy in 1947. Virginia had various jobs throughout her lifetime, Pepperell Mills, waitress at Tom’s in Kittery, cake decorator at Hannaford’s in Hampton, NH, supervisor at Booth Fisheries in Portsmouth. NH. Virginia was an avid knitter, crocheter, and quilter. She enjoyed making mittens, scarves, socks, and hats. She also crocheted infant gift sets for Barbara Bush Hospital.

Virginia was predeceased by her parents; her husband Leo Gagne; her brothers Clifford Parker, Donald Parker, Roger Parker, Kenneth Parker; and grandson Kelsey.

Survivors include son Dennis Verrill of Center Barnstead, NH and daughter Christine Fergusson of Corinth, Vt.; her brother Richard Parker and his wife Mary; grandchildren Dyanne Cunningham of Dover, NH, Dawn Hernandez of Eliot, Kristi Watt of San Marcos, Calif., James Kiernan of North Carolina, Michael Kiernan of Hampton, NH, granddaughter Pilar, grandson Adam both of Vermont; and also many great grandchildren, great-great grandchildren; many nieces, nephews, extended family members and friends.

Visiting hours are to be held Saturday May 25, 2024 from 3 to 5 p.m. at Dennett, Craig & Pate Funeral Home 365 Main St, Saco.

A funeral service will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday May 26, 2024 at the funeral home.



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