Climbing accident, Northwich, Cheshire

[Deafhead]

1 hour ago, Peasgood said:

The tractor is strong enough but I would be surprised if they had a rope strong enough or long enough.

I've dealt with a few hung up windblown and always used a steel rope.

[peds]

2 hours ago, Peasgood said:

The tractor is strong enough but I would be surprised if they had a rope strong enough or long enough.

 

Endless strops shackled together. I've pulled down a few trees of similar size in recent months with six or seven loops linked together.

[AHPP]

13 minutes ago, peds said:

 

Endless strops shackled together. I've pulled down a few trees of similar size in recent months with six or seven loops linked together.

 

Something I've been thinking about lately is the proper order in which things should fail to be safest/cheapest/most useful. Just something to bear in mind when you've got a chain of heavy steel bits with pingy strap bits in between.

Edited Sunday at 11:18 by AHPP

[Peasgood]

1 minute ago, AHPP said:

 

Something I've been thinking about lately is the proper order in which things should fail to be safest/most useful. Just something to have in mind when you've got a chain of heavy steel bits with pingy strap bits in between.

It is definitely not a spectator sport and it would certainly introduce a whole new set of potential disasters with all those folk on site.

I do pull things with chains, steel ropes and a big ships rope I have but not when there are any spectators in range. A difficult thing to organise with this situation as I expect there was nobody there in overall control. I also expect each person there assumed the other people there were competent at their particular job and therefore less likely to step in. ie. the tractor driver probably never even noticed where any of the climbers anchor points were, just as the climber wouldn't be checking the pins on the tractor should they have been used.

[Haironyourchest]

So true. Weakest link at the puller end, always. Dyneema pull rope is nice and safe. If I was in a position to own big machines for tree work I'd have some, with Soft shackles etc. 

[peds]

45 minutes ago, AHPP said:

Something I've been thinking about lately is the proper order in which things should fail to be safest/cheapest/most useful. Just something to bear in mind when you've got a chain of heavy steel bits with pingy strap bits in between.

 

You should always be aware of what the weakest link in the system is, of course, but when you've got 6 ton strops joined by 6 ton shackles... in this specific scenario I'd say the hung-up twigs are probably the weakest link.

[Haironyourchest]

31 minutes ago, peds said:

 

You should always be aware of what the weakest link in the system is, of course, but when you've got 6 ton strops joined by 6 ton shackles... in this specific scenario I'd say the hung-up twigs are probably the weakest link.

 

Yup. Those slings and shackles are rated x5 anyway, so will fail around 30 tonnes, when new. A big tractor wouldn't come close to breaking them in any scenario. I had one job involving a 5 tonne digger and probably a three tonne cypress lying on the ground in muck. 3 tonne chain and the weak link was a little 1 tonne no-name shackle (rated though, allegedly). Thought the tree was cut into thirds but my cuts hadn't gone through all the way, as we discovered. The digger guy went feral, against my request for caution, and dragged the whole tree out, branch stubs in the dirt and all, digger bucking and pitching 45 degrees etc. the shackle was attached to a hole in the bucket, side loaded, probably twisted, and it held. It did suffer some deformation. Gave me a new faith in the strength of rated rigging gear.

[AHPP]

Yes but it's nice to be nice.

[Ledburyjosh]

This thread has made me look at the capability of my Eder 1800..

Eder make triple pulleys to work with this winch, of which you can configure to give 7x1800= 12.6t! Minus some inefficiency in the pulleys etc. But that pretty damm impressive for a wee winch you can carry around. No tractors needed.. just a strong anchor.

[AHPP]

I can't remember where I saw it but I recently read that someone was getting as much as 2500kg straight line pull from an Eder 1800.

Edited Sunday at 19:56 by AHPP