A single 11 hour frost event is not strange, but this fan is.

Royce McKean and Waiata Vineyards have often annoyed the residents around the Hurunui with their massive installation of Orchard Rite frost fans.

What a marvellous surprise it was to find the following (2007) article in the ‘Fruitfed News’ that espoused the wisdom and foresightedness of Royce in purchasing 53 of the 3000 series Orchard Rite fans for his Waipara vineyard.

This is the same model fan that when measured by Hegley Acoustics in 2005 could only meet the old noise restrictions of the Marlborough District Council if wound down to the point of uselessness. So you can safely assume that they have never been run at this speed and for some reason the residents have complained. The nerve.

But let’s take a moment to have another look at the ‘Fruitfed News’ article again.

What’s that they say?

“The 53 Orchard-Rite wind machines installed on Waipara vineyard this winter have already proven their worth during an eleven hour frost event says viticultural manager Dan Riddell.”

Gosh that’s interesting. You see one of the basic tenants that’s being pushed by the NZ Winegrowers Association is that because the fans are used for such a small amount of time, the disruption to sleep is minimal. In fact during the recent frost fan hearing in Marlborough, figures of less than 10 hours use in a year were submitted by growers.

That must be comforting to know for those Hurunui district residents who suffered through a single 11 hour event. This is not a cumulative total over a season. This is one night. One night without sleep and then back to work the next day. Driving to and from work, operating heavy machinery, trying to make decisions while sleep impaired. ONE night is intolerable. And it’s never just one night is it?

Good show.

What about Orchard Rite? Did they sell Royce a pup? In a quote from the advertising Royce went with them because “Not only were the technical considerations important, but also the philosophies of how the Orchard-Rite people do business. Ultimately, we had a lot of confidence in the key people at Orchard-Rite and that they’d stand behind their products.”

That’s given me a warm glow.

However, it was interesting to note in a picture donated from an interested citizen that Royce has begun testing a different fan up the Wairau Valley. If you look closely on one of his noisy Orchard Rites, you’ll see a brand new Defender blade sitting on it.

Now, to those not in the know, this is taking two competing companies and making their evil love child. To be perfectly honest that’s not fair to the Defender, since in spite of my serious misgivings about this blade and its woeful testing, there would be no doubt in my mind that it would be a generation ahead of the Orchard Rite blade it replaced (not that being less noisy than an Orchard Rite is anything to crow about).

So the question remains, why would you do it?

Well there’s the obvious answer and there’s the one that Orchard Rite would rather you didn’t know.

The obvious reason would be that Royce knows full well that the jig is up and that his current fans are stupidly noisy and are likely to get dealt to by the new raft of Council rules being enacted all over the place.

I will let you know what the less obvious and far more worrying reason is tomorrow.