Calculations on windmill transmissions by Simon Stevin (1548–1620) – who due to his versatile talents is frequently referred to as the Netherlands’ Leonardo da Vinci – enhanced the efficiency of the winged machines by a massive 30 percent. Cornelis Corneliszoon (1550–1600) provided the windmills tuned by Stevin with the crankshaft he had patented in 1597 that transformed the rotary motion of the windmill shaft into an oscillating motion of saw blades. This technology cut boards thirty times faster and more precisely as well than the human hand.

The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind

Bob Dylan

Northwest of Amsterdam in those years, in Zaandam, Europe’s first industrial area emerged with hundreds of shipyards and wind-powered sawmills. According to contemporary sources, the Dutch fleet had 16,000 ships, or 4/5 of the total European fleet. The place where the first industrial area used to be is now home to the Zaanse Schans museum complex with the reconstructed Het Jonge Schaap sawmill.

The biggest ones of their kind - by sail/blade diameter

MURPHY WINDMILL
SAN FRANCISCO (USA)

Type wind pump
Completed in 1908
Sail diameter 35 meters (115 feet)
Output 151,000 l/h (40,000 gallons/h) of water

ADWEN AD 8-180 WIND TURBINE
BREMERHAVEN (D)

Type prototype of an offshore wind turbine Completed in 2017
Blade diameter 180 meters (591 feet) Output 8 MW of electricity