The windmill tower is 50 feet tall. It carries the fan on its top: a multi-blade wheel sitting above the canopy formed by the crowns of old mango trees. Our fan has 20 blades – also known as “sails” – in galvanized iron (1.4mm gauge), and a diameter of almost 3.5 metres. The fan is attached to a shaft: the shaft rotates, as the fan revolves pushed by its ‘sails; and this motion turns a pinion gear inside a gearbox on the opposite side of the shaft. The uppermost tip of the rotating fan reaches a height of 55 feet.
Even with minimal wind, the fan and its 20 “sails” make up a very heavy frisbee.
To replace shaft and pinion gear we had no other option than getting the wheel off the tower. Not an easy job: it took eight people to take it down, dismounting the fan from its shaft above the tree crowns and descending it 55 feet below.
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