Control point failure

[newb]

Talk about close calls. Yesterday we were taking out a small Cottonwood. I had a leader rigged through a Maple that looked healthy. We were using the fiddle block and I had made my cuts and had lifted the leader up. With my rope puller I pulled the bottom out to let it hang and was getting ready to start cutting and lowering. Everything going to plan, this was going to be a good day. Then came the crack. And everything came crashing down. I have to say for as bad as it could have been it missed everything but my mid range saw. The 2 grounders were afraid to come out of the woods to see the damage. It couldn't have missed the house by more than 2 feet. So I grabbed my nuts and yelled "perfect drop, lets get it cut up". Nothing like a good lesson with no ins claim.

 

[stehansen]

I thnk that when you are pulling or lifting a limb you need to put another pulley back at the trunk of the tree that you are rigging from so that both ropes arenpt pulling down on the limb that you are rigging from. I had a similar thing happen on a cottonwood, I was rigging on the same tree. Cottonwood limbs are really heavy and not very strong. The tree Gods were sending you a mesasage.

 

[Dadatwins]

Did the maple rigging point fail or the limb you were lifting break apart? I'm a bit confused to what failed and what would you do different?

 

[newb]

It was the Maple that failed. The thing I will do different next time is if the piece I'm lifting is equal to the size of the rigging point, I will take a sling and block and rig to a spar instead of a crotch. It was the crotch that failed. I'm taking the message and going to learn from this. I was taught that you over think your rigging, and if something fails, hopefully damage will be minimal.

 

[Dadatwins]

Also double or even triple crotching can take some load off the main and distribute the load over a larger area. Glad damage was minimal and no one was hurt.

 

[Trinity Honoria]

The 2 grounders were afraid to come out of the woods to see the damage. It couldn't have missed the house by more than 2 feet. So I grabbed my nuts and yelled "perfect drop, lets get it cut up".

since i only understand 10% of tree speak, plus i am not sure if you meant your above comments as i "interpret" them, but i appreciate your bravado! you made me laugh out loud...

and i am delighted (a) no damage done and (b) no one injured...

 

[pantheraba]

Also double or even triple crotching can take some load off the main and distribute the load over a larger area.

Does that mean to set secondary belays to other crotches...in other words, if you are using a block to lower the load that you attach another sling/rope to the block and use another crotch to backup the primary crotch?

Or do you use a second block belayed from another crotch to distribute the load?

 

[Dadatwins]

Does that mean to set secondary belays to other crotches...in other words, if you are using a block to lower the load that you attach another sling/rope to the block and use another crotch to backup the primary crotch?

Or do you use a second block belayed from another crotch to distribute the load?

If you use natural crotches run the rope through 2 different crotches to distribute the load, similiar setup with blocks, idea is to spread the load weight across a larger area at the rigging point and not concentrate all the load at one spot. Hopefully Tree spyder will chime in with some pics of this method, he has some cool video at his site if someone can post it.

 

[pantheraba]

Makes sense...thanks.