Horticultural head-scratcher 5
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Uncooperative crusty. Unofficial Isle of Wight cultural ambassador. Conservation, countryside and the environment, with extra stuff about spiders.
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Another Find the Fault for you… same rules apply:
What’s wrong with this pic? Answer in the comments – and can you get a bonus mark by finding a fault that’s not on the official answer card?
Plenty of points today – well done to everyone who chipped in.
Yes, pascal got in again with the point for the first correct answer as taken from the official card:
However he’s wrong about the position of the sails relative to the corner, as Dave correctly points out the top of a windmill goes around, and so the angle could be anything.
But bonuses galore as Freddie, Simon and simon kinsey all point out very sound structural problems with these sails. Extra second bonus to Simon for the slat angles.
Can’t agree with The Wildlife Gardener for once, and Tim Frost is too erudite for me, so he gets a point anyway.
And finally, I’ll have one of my own. As one of the jobs I did I have actually operated a windpump by myself, which is more-or-less a little windmill. So my professional view is that these sails are way too narrow. They won’t catch enough wind to turn that cumbersome thing, even supposing it would turn. Yay! My first point.
Next card on the way…
Built on the top of a round hill, would be disasterous as soon as the wind starts to blow (I know the wind isnt blowing as the tree is perfectly still!). The tapered walls just above ground level would have the same affect as on the windmill as one of those childrens toys that wobble all over the place, and wont stand still. I think there was one in the original Noddy before it was made very PC. Grumble grumble.
Oh and by the way, is the lemon question refering to a ripe lemon or an unripe lemon?
I think the fault is with the sails main poles/shafts.
The pair that are at 11 o clock and 5 o clock are directly opposite eachother through the middle boss. However the sails that are at 2 o clock and 7 o clock are staggered or offset as they go through the middle boss.
The mixing of construction techniques I am sure would not happen – it would be one way or another.
The slats should be open at the sides to catch the wind, at the moment they are ‘boxed in’?
I think their answer will be that the blades would hit the steps. However the other fault would be that the blades are not at mutual right angles. Also – finally – the slats that make up the blades are all overlapping in the same direction whereas those on the upper blades should be opposite to those on the lower blades.
Unevenly spaced sweeps was what I though as well.
The steps being below the sweeps isn’t wrong (those of us old enough to remember Trumpton will remember Windy Miller nipping in and out between the sweeps!) In reality this type of mill, a cap mill where the whole cap turns to face the wind, would have had a second door on the other side so that it would always be possible to get in and out without getting hit, see http://www.ilkcam.com/2004/040829/Heage.html for a real example! The whole mill would have had to have been 6 foot higher to get the sweeps above the door, so a lot easier to put in two doors.
So the second fault is the lack of a path leading round to the second door at the back!
Or it could be that as the mill tapers towards the top the sails are not mounted far enough out to miss the balustrade around the bottom of the mill, but I think that that is just bad drawing!
Too true Pas, but also it shows that wind turbines of any design have long had their day.
I think that there is another fault. The wings should be at 90 degrees to each other, not 120 and 60.
Wasn’t done by that old bloke from Madeira Road was it?
I’d say it’s a bad idea to have the stairs just below the wings.
But the very presence of the stairs might be a problem, if you have to carry the bags up the stairs in order to have your wheat ground.
Also I’m not sure but I’m used to see the wings axis above a wall, not above a corner between two walls.