The giant yellow lattice towers, which have dominated the Leith skyline since March and are visible from Fife, are set to leave by early next year.
The Chinese-manufactured towers immediately raised eyebrows due to their size, towering over the large Port of Leith Distillery at up to 83 metres tall – roughly the height of a 25-storey building.
The lattice structures – known as jacket foundations – are part of the Inch Cape wind farm project off the East Coast of Scotland, much of the construction for which has been based in Leith Docks.
They were transported to Leith ahead of construction work for the wind farm in March 2026.
Inch Cape Offshore Limited, the joint venture behind the project, will begin transporting the structures from Leith Docks to the wind farm site when structural pin piles are attached to the North Sea seabed.
The jackets will attach to these cylindrical pin piles, which start being installed this week, and support large wind turbines off the Angus coast.
The final towers are expected to leave Leith Docks by early 2027.
Jacket foundations are typically used where water depths are above 55 metres, with each foundation designed bespoke for its specific position based on water depth, soil conditions and turbine size.
The 18 jackets in Leith Docks form part of a large project to install 72 wind turbines on the site. Each of the jacket foundations requires three pin piles to stand securely.
Delivery and installation of the various wind farm components is being handled by Seaway7, an offshore installation contractor.
Of the 72 turbines, 54 will stand on monopiles, while the remaining 18 will use three-legged jackets secured by the pin piles.
All 54 monopiles were installed by Jan De Nul in June. Seaway7 subsequently completed installation of their 54 transition pieces, each weighing approximately 700 tonnes, during a campaign conducted from Leith.
Seaway7 senior project manager Niamh Thompson said: “With this phase now complete, our focus turns to the installation of the pin piles in preparation for the jacket campaign later this year.”
The contract covering the jacket foundations, pin piles and transition pieces is valued by Seaway7 at between $150 million and $300 million.
Seaway7’s heavy-lift vessel Seaway Alfa Lift, which has a giant crane on board, will return to Leith this week to begin collecting the pin piles which have also been stationed at the port for months.
