Giant wooden cargo ships that braved the oceans for thousands of years are still being made in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Even as metal motorised ships became the norm, some shoreline communities in South India continue to craft this wooden cargo ship. In a blend of reason, creativity and hard work the communities engineered their past to forge a future. This book traces the transition of this tradition over time.

The authors have created a photo documentation using hundreds of images that capture the shipyard’s atmosphere to offer a narrative and the manufacture of these ships at each step of their construction. It analyzes the conditions of their economic viability and how it has evolved over time. Through visual anthropology this book offers a narrative of wooden cargo ship building and craftsmanship in south Asia.

The open access book can be downloaded from https://www.ifpindia.org/bookstore/wild-craft/.

There is also a video about the project: Of Wind and Wood. Sustainable cargo ships in France and in India.

Quoted from: Siamanta, Z. C., & Dunlap, A. (2019). ‘Accumulation by Wind Energy’: Wind Energy Development as a Capitalist Trojan Horse in Crete, Greece and Oaxaca, Mexico. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 18(4), 925–955. Retrieved from https://acme-journal.org/index.php/acme/article/view/1718

“We started our research, with a birds eye techno-economic analysis and a scoping review. The results were promising, so we decided to build our own prototype. To refine our analysis, we are now searching for people, who already have experience with this technology. Maybe we could discuss some lessons learned. Do you have contact to any person experienced in wind-thermal energy applications? I would really appreciate this.”

The scoping review is freely accessible online: Neumeier, Malte, et al. “State of the art of windthermal turbines: A systematic scoping review of direct wind-to-heat conversion technologies.” Journal of Energy Resources Technology 144.4 (2022). From the abstract:

Windthermal turbines convert wind directly into thermal energy. Albeit it is an uncharted field of research, the overall system efficiency and costs of fully developed windthermal turbines are promising; since they can contribute to a sustainable energy transition. We identify the current state of the art of windthermal conversion principles, technology maturity, applications, substitutes, advantages, and disadvantages.

To scope relevant literature, we follow the Joanna Briggs Institutes selection and screening process resulting in 61 relevant publications from which we identified three main conversion types, namely, compression-, friction-, and induction-based windthermal devices. These devices can directly supply thermal energy for space heating or industrial processes, work as a component of wind-powered thermal energy systems, short windthermal energy system (WTES), or can substitute any conventional or renewable heat device.

Although heat is the lowest form of energy, windthermal applications could provide cheap renewable energy that can be stored easily enhancing security of supply. However, these technologies are currently on laboratory scale, and we suggest scaling up the existing prototypes to engineering scale. Finally, due to a missing general terminology, we propose to establish one of the terms windthermal energy, ventothermal energy, or anemothermal energy to distinguish these specific wind energy conversion technologies.

The cost assessment, which was quoted in the Low-tech Magazine article, is also online: Cao, Karl-Kiên, et al. “Expanding the horizons of power-to-heat: Cost assessment for new space heating concepts with Wind Powered Thermal Energy Systems.” Energy 164 (2018): 925-936.

A “klopotec” or “klapotets” is a wooden mechanical device on a high wooden pole, similar to a windmill. It is used as a bird scarer in the vineyards of traditional wine-growing landscapes of Slovenia, Austria, and Croatia. The first written mentions of the technology date to the second half of the 18th century, whereas its oldest depictions date to the first half of the 19th century.

As the axis rotates in the wind, wooden hammers are lifted off their resting position by fixed notches. As they fall back, they rhythmically impact on a wooden board. While the quality of the sound is dependent on the wood of which the hammers and sounding boards are made of, the rattle frequency depends on the number of hammers, as well as changes in wind speed.

The klopotec was only used from July until November, after which it was disassembled for winter. The largest construction of this type in a natural setting stood in the Sausal mountain range, near the summit of the Demmerkogel. It was 16 meters high, and each of the eight hammers weighed 40 kilograms. It was destroyed in a storm in November 2017.

Sources: 1 / 2 / 3.

The vertical windmill on ice uses a number of skis to benefit from the low friction of the ice. The windmill spins around an axis that is fixed into the ice. The small prototype works very good, but if scaled up in size it would be necessary to take lifting forces into account. [Video]

A similar concept is applied to a vertical windmill floating on water, contained within a rigid structure. The windmill rotates smoothly with the use of a simple water bearing. [Video]

Gripenberg also made a wind-powered carousel from a 6 ton ice sheet. [Video]

Images: Simon Gripenberg

More information at Reuters: Plastic buckets, broken printers shine light on Hanoi’s poor. Via Playground Magazine.

See all our low-tech windmill posts.

François Porcher has translated our 2009 article “Wind Powered Factories: History (and Future) of Industrial Windmills” (“Des fabriques mues par le vent: histoire (et avenir) des moulins à vent“) and sends us the image above to complement the illustrations. For a high-resolution image, go here. More articles have been translated to French and other languages.

Previously:

• How to rig a windmill sail
• Building plans for Dutch Industrial Windmills
• The homemade windmills of Nebraska
• Tree Windmills
• Windmills and wind motors: how to build and run them
• Scale models of Dutch Industrial Windmills

“Having tested wings on boats in place of sails (‘wingsails’) designers noticed another feature used on aircraft that would be useful to use in conjunction with wingsails – controlling the wingsail with another smaller surface mounted behind or in front of it (a ‘tail’). There are many examples of tails used to control the direction of bodies both in the water and in the air, and aircraft use them to adjust, to a precise degree, the lift or (angle of attack) of their wings.”

“If a tail is used attached to a boats’ wingsail, it can adjust the wing perfectly to every small change of wing direction, in this way relieving the sailor of this task, which is mostly guesswork and at best very approximate, and it can perform that job much better than any sailor can do. Such a wingsail/tail combination is referred to as a self-trimming wingsail.”

Read more: 1 / 2.

The Sailrocket, a sailing boat that we have talked about before, is the fastest craft under sail, after breaking the 2010 record held by a kiteboarder.

During the last run in Namibia in November 2012, an improved version of this unconventional boat reached an average speed of 65.45 knots (121.21 km/h or 75.31 mph) over a distance of 500 meters. Earlier this year it set speed records of 59.23 and 59.37 knots.

Record sailing speeds have almost tripled since the beginning of the 1970s. Those who think that sailboats are a technology from the past, think again.

See and read more at YachtPals and Sailrocket.

“This is hopefully the start of a set of documents that will help in the construction of a portable, authentic forge and bronze casting set up. I am starting with the bellows as I can use them at home to help get the fire going in the winter months.”

“I have repaired a number of sets of bellows, but this is the first set I have actually made myself from scratch. They appear to work well – good flow rate, nice range of movement, practically no air loss. If you follow any of the instructions below and it doesn’t work properly – well then you are just doing it wrong.”

Making bellows.

This collection of 21 building plans for 5 different types of Dutch industrial windmills was published in 1850. There is a saw mill, an oats mill, a flour mill, and two pumping mills. The book contains no text, only illustrations.

“Theoretisch en practisch molenboek: voor ingenieurs, aannemers, molenaars en andere bouwkundigen“, G. Krook, 1850.

(“Theoretical and practical windmill book; for engineers, contractors and millwrights”).

Follow the link above for high-resolution images.

More:

• The home made windmills of Nebraska (1899)
• Windmills and wind motors – how to build and run them (1910)
• Scale models of Dutch industrial windmills 
• Wind powered factories: history (and future) of industrial windmills
• Boat mills: water powered, floating factories

Instead the group will be guided by the traditional techniques that helped the Polynesian people traverse the wide expanses of the Pacific and settle the islands of Hawaii, New Zealand and Tonga, to name just a few – techniques like the movement of the stars, the sun and moon, oceanic currents and bird and animal life.

The sailing odyssey is part of an effort by Polynesian academic and cultural groups to reclaim the navigational knowledge of their forebears, much of which was lost after European colonization.” Read more (official website). Previously: Polynesian stick charts / Satellite navigation in the 18th century / Developed nations dangerously over-reliant on GPS.

“Flagged trees only reflect the prevailing wind direction of the strongest winds, which may occur during only part of the year. Seasonal variations in the wind have a pronounced effect on the type of wind deformation and these effects are characterized in this handbook. Techniques for estimating the mean annual wind speed have been developed using indices of wind effects on trees. These indices have been calibrated on two widely distributed species of conifers. The main conclusions are that trees provide a simple, inexpensive and quick method for identifying promising locations where more detailed measurements can verify the wind potential.”

Trees as an indicator of wind power potential (.pdf), John E. Wade & E. Wendell Hewson, 1979.
Vegetation as an indicator of high wind velocity (.pdf), DOE report, John E. Wade & R.W. Baker, 1977

More low-tech wind power.

“The Junk Blue Book of 1962 is a detailed catalog of the indigenous boats of what was then South Vietnam, during a period when most such vessels were still powered by sail. It was a manual put together by the US Dept. of Defense early in the involvement in the war in Vietnam. It was used as a guide to identify coastwise marine traffic involved in smuggling supplies and personnel south into the Republic of Vietnam from then North Vietnam. Although its production was driven by perceived military necessity it is a unique chronicle of the indigenous fishing and cargo craft of the mid and southern Vietnamese coasts.”

The book is in the public domain and can be found on scribd. A pdf-version is available on a dedicated site. Via Indigenous boats. See also: the wooden work boats of Indochina.

“We investigated the use of counter-rotating vertical-axis wind turbines (VAWTs) in order to achieve higher power output per unit land area than existing wind farms consisting of HAWTs. Full-scale field tests of 10-m tall VAWTs in various counter-rotating configurations were conducted under natural wind conditions during summer 2010. Whereas modern wind farms consisting of HAWTs produce 2 to 3 watts of power per square meter of land area, these field tests indicate that power densities an order of magnitude greater [21 to 47 watts] can potentially be achieved by arranging VAWTs in layouts that enable them to extract energy from adjacent wakes and from above the wind farm.”

“The results suggest an alternative approach to wind farming that has the potential to concurrently reduce the cost, size, and environmental impacts of wind farms.”

Read more: ‘Potential order-of-magnitude enhancement of wind farm power density via counterrotating vertical-axis wind turbine arrays’, John O. Dabiri. Introduction. Research paper (pdf). Via Ecogeek. 

“The merit of homemade mills has enjoyed such prompt recognition that they are going up daily. Not to the detriment, we are happy to say, of those important adjuncts to the farm, the shopmade mills, but in addition to them.

In a given community, the man who puts up the first mill generally furnishes the model for the rest of the community. Hence it seems the more desirable that good models should be at hand, the better models are often of quite as easy constructed and no more expensive than the poorer, and their efficiency considerably greater.

It is advantageous to have good models to copy, and the next best thing to the actual model is a good simple drawing. This is the first object of this paper on our homemade windmills; it aims to supply cuts illustrating all sorts of windmills, as found in this State.”

“The homemade windmills of Nebraska” (pdf), Erwin Hinckley Barbour, 1899. Illustration: a wind powered sawing machine.

Related: Windmills and wind motors – how to build and run them (1910), Building plans of Dutch Industrial windmills (1850).

Read more: “Can renewables solve the greenhouse problem? The negative case” (pdf), Ted Trainer, Energy Policy, March 2010. Also check out the author’s website, where you can find similar papers, like this one.

Source: “Travailler au moulin / Werken met molens”, Jean Bruggeman, 1996.

He could have saved himself some work if he had seen the illustration on the right, which I copied from a 1901 Dutch newspaper. The accompanying text says:

“Windmills are ugly contraptions and many attempts have been made to make them look better. This illustration shows how nature and mechanics can coexist.”

“It is a windmill constructed in combination with two trees. The trees only serve as a support for the upper part and for the ladder to reach the top. The mill was built in Illinois (US) and worked so well that several have been constructed.”

I could not find any more information about it.