Fantail and Mill Vanes @museum.de

F: Each of the four sails is almost twelve metres long and a little over two metres wide – that's forty feet by six and a half feet respectively. The framework is made of timber from conifers that grew on a slope in mountainous terrain, so they were always exposed to the wind. As a result, the timber is especially flexible and resilient, since a mill vane needs to be pretty strong!

M: Ideally, you want the wind to be blowing straight at the sails. But as soon as it changes direction, the cap (and hence the sails) need to be realigned. In the old days, this was done by means of a tail pole, which extended from the cap down to the ground. The miller had to interrupt his work, leave the mill and use all his strength to move the tail pole and realign the cap... until the wind changed direction again.

F: Fortunately, most windmills are now equipped with a fantail, a small-scale set of vanes that does the work. The fantail is mounted right at the top, opposite the sweep. It is connected to a worm drive that moves the cap into precise alignment whenever the wind changes direction. So a fantail like this doesn't just look attractive, it also saves the miller a lot of work!

M: Spreading the cloth on the sails, by contrast, still has to be done by hand. The miller will place each lattice framework in a vertical position and climb up – as if he were climbing the rigging of a sailing ship. He'll be carrying a length of cloth, two metres or six and a half feet wide. Then he'll unroll the cloth and secure it to the lattices with ropes and eyelets – a truly hair-raising enterprise!

F: So an honest-to-goodness miller had to be multi-talented. He needed some engineering skills to understand the mill's complicated mechanics. He had to be strong enough to move the tail pole, the millstone or other component parts with nothing but muscle power. He needed the manual skills and a sure instinct to dress a millstone properly. And he needed to have a head for heights so he could adjust the sails of his mill.

M: If you'd like to see our local miller Herbert Lücking spreading cloth on the mill sails, check your screen now.