With the 2024 Humber Renewables Awards now launched, David Laister caught up with 2023 champion Kurt Christensen, a man who carved a second career in the sector for which his continuing ambassadorial activity saw him crowned.
With the 2024 Humber Renewables Awards now launched, David Laister caught up with 2023 champion Kurt Christensen, a man who carved a second career in the sector for which his continuing ambassadorial activity saw him crowned.
What has a multi-billion pound emerging green energy industry got to do with the price of fish? A question many on Grimsby’s bustling Monday morning market may have pondered as the larger-than-life auctioneer emerged at the helm of one of the town’s first businesses dedicated to offshore wind.
On the face of it, it doesn’t tally. But take the skin off and there’s plenty to link the two beyond the quaysides they share. Urgency, and willingness to go the extra mile or 200, has been at the heart. The immediacy of action, with the cost of having a vessel laid up in port – or a turbine down because of it – and a 24/7 approach ensuring a Friday afternoon problem isn’t left until Monday to fix – are traits that have served Grimsby, the Humber and ‘Sir’ Kurt well in both.
Having acted as an agent to manage trawlers alongside the sales of seafood species, he is a very well connected man, with a contacts book the envy of many. “Yes” was the answer, with the follow-up of “now what’s the question?” to many a query in those nascent days down dock.
“I’d never been involved in shipping before, but I learned very quickly,” he recalled, looking back at the first steps into the industry back in 2006, overseeing construction vessels deployed on the area’s first wind farm, Lynn and Inner Dowsing. “I’d had 50 years of looking after trawlers, but never these big boats. The first one came in, I looked at it, and thought ‘don’t be scared’. All it is, is a trawler, a very big trawler. We treated it the same, when it came in, it was repairs, crew change, fuel and grub, and then back out. Even in the settling, we treated every vessel the same as a trawler; working 24/7 and jobs done as safely as possible. They said they’d never seen anything like it.” An early introduction to Siemens, the turbine manufacturer of choice for virtually all the farms now served off the Humber, had paved the way, and as Danish Consul in the area, he was a useful ally.
“I realised from the first introduction to Siemens when they were looking at crew transfer vessels and people doing bits and pieces, and when they started talking about what they were going to do, and what they needed, that it was going to be big.”
Wind Power Support was launched providing all the services a huge business needs, but doesn’t have the knowledge to acquire, in a new location. He helped finish the fit out and mobilisation of the first service operation vessel with C-Bed, then a converted roll-on roll-off ferry – not the purpose built red giants frequently moored below the Dock Tower now. His firm went on to build three crew transfer vessels to aid delivery, having launched a first as a tool runner, seeing a gap in the service offering.
Operations in Harwich, Hartlepool, Ramsgate, Lowestoft and Liverpool followed, with his Wind Power Support business having a presence in each port, all controlled from Grimsby. “To see how much has been put into the Humber is fabulous, and for me it was fantastic,” he said. “On a personal note, at that time of my life – the back end of my Fifties – every day I got up and learned something and met someone new, solved some problems and earned some money. It didn’t get better than that for me, it was a fascinating time.”
And it still is. More than a decade on, he is now on the board of Humber Marine and Renewables and cuts a familiar figure at industry events across the UK.
“Gardening doesn’t sit well with me, I don’t play golf or watch football. I still have the interest. I have so many phone numbers, so many contacts and there are so many situations I have seen before. The sector is also full of people I consider friends. It is very sociable. People who I have met have moved here, lived here and stayed here. This area, Grimsby, might have a funny name, and the Humber might not be romantic, but people come and stay.
“When I first started in 2006/7, if I walked into any school in Grimsby and asked the kids what they wanted to do when they leave school, the answer would be ‘I don’t know’. You go into a school now and they want to be a turbine technician, the skipper of a crew transfer vessel or work at the airport with the helicopters. Everything has changed.
“Now, following renewables, with the Net Zero agenda, the likes of Phillips 66 and other huge employers are changing the way they work. So many are taking on apprentices, which is what I wanted to see. It is making up for the total destruction of the fishing industry.
” It was that industry that brought Kurt’s father from Denmark in 1957.When he was four they crossed the North Sea, initially settling in Hessle, where they lived for four years, before moving to the South Bank. They’d followed the fish trade, with his father skipper of a seine netter, and well aware of the pull of the processing and merchanting power that remains today. Mr Christensen started in the industry as an errand boy on the docks, and by 18 was auctioning fish, a role he continued in for half a century. The latter years saw him conducting sales after a 4am start, before turning his attention to turbines at his office looking down the Royal Dock.
“When I first started I couldn’t get people to understand what was happening,” he said of the industry’s infancy. He worked with Grimsby Fish Dock Enterprises – operator of the dock that first hosted vessel sailings – and the local authority, to launch Grimsby Renewables Partnership. It set out on a successful mission to spread awareness, break down barriers, open doors and ultimately help SMEs feed into the sector, eventually merging with Team Humber Marine Alliance in 2022.
“If I could have done it myself, I would, but it didn’t take even a year to realise this was huge on a global scale, not just for the Humber, not just for Grimsby,” Mr Christensen said. “To be a part of it for as long as I was, was fantastic.”
A quote he lives by, ‘there is no limit to what a man can do so long as he does not care a straw who gets the credit,’ has been attributed to journalist and novelist Charles Edward Montague, with similar iterations from US presidents Harry Truman and Ronald Regan. And while he certainly doesn’t seek the limelight, so many others have been quick to ensure he has had it. From the first UK chair of Orsted, Brent Cheshire, the wider business community and his native royal family, accolades and praise had been bestowed well ahead of the Humber Renewables Champion title.
Already knighted by his native Denmark for his work in fishing, a first class knighthood followed for the way he helped foster relations in offshore wind. And that has been his mark. A convener, collaborator, ambassador, lobbyist and, undoubtedly, a champion. “I’m just so pleased to have been a part of it all,” he said. “My main passion, my main concern, has been Grimsby, but I care about the Humber, and the more businesses we can get going and benefiting from wind, the better. The merger was important, it was a job well done by Andrew Oliver (past chair) and others. The industry is competitive, vicious almost, and we were losing influence to the North East and East of England. There are some very hard-working and talented people on the board, led by Iain Butterworth now – who has a tremendous appetite for what can be done – and I’m pleased to be a part of it.”
Entries for the 2024 Humber Renewables Awards are now open, with 10 categories available for nomination.
Winners to be unveiled at a gala dinner at Hull’s Doubletree by Hilton Hotel on May 2, capping two days of exhibiting and networking as the finale to the Offshore Wind Connections conference. For full details visit www.humber-renewables.com. The deadline is Sunday, March 17.
