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Tilting at…

@pratik ok, dumb question: do windmills rotate on their base? (I guess they'd need to)

@rickcogley What do you mean, on their base?

@pratik well, can the building be rotated to face into the wind, I wonder.

@rickcogley Ah! No. These are the old kinds. They were built to face the usual direction of the wind.

@rickcogley @pratik These old windmills are a tourist attraction at the Zaanse Schans , in my native country The Netherlands. They were build on a central wooden post around which the entire millhouse rotates. This is done by hand with a winch.

@ovr @pratik interesting either way, built fixed, or rotate-able with a hand winch. I want to see them in person one day.

@ovr thank you for the advice!

@ovr Wait it does? 😳 They didn’t tell us that. So cool.

@pratik Yes indeed! Once I got to try it, under the watchful eye of a miller. It is hard work! 🫤

@pratik First off all, lovely picture. And also great discovery in the comments. I wouldn’t have noticed it, but as soon as you zoom in, you can see the rotating platform. Which I still wouldn’t have noticed except that it looks so similar to another design I know. I grew up in and around forestry, and one of the machines (Valmet 911C and 911.3) has a cab that sits on a large tilting, hydraulically controlled slew ring, so that it can rotate with the boom and remain level on any terrain.

@tinyroofnail Cool. I didn’t even considered that possibility