And I thought windmills were such graceful things. That was an...

And I thought windmills were such graceful things. That was an expensive bit of entertainment. Instead of arguing against windmills perhaps we should legislate against overly strong wind speeds?

More seriously, that was a most abnormal situation as vanes are set to idle above a particular wind speed so as to prevent such occurrences. That clearly didn't happen here. Resonances at the top of towers must be avoided at all costs. From that cameo vid it was not possible to see such vibrations building up. What exactly snapped first? As an example of the effect of resonances many of you may have seen the film footage of the dramatic torsional oscillations building up in the Tacoma Bridge before it collapsed in 1927.

Juke