Close Call: Rigging Point Failure | Arborist Rigging 

“Go small and go home.” Perfect. 👌

I think I should have been watching your videos along time ago I can honestly say I am a new climber only 3 Years in but I will say I live eat and breathe this now I love it it’s all I can think about and I want to say that I appreciate how much I respect the fact that you take the time to educate people because without people like you people like me would be fucked I never had a sponsor I never had a mentor I never had anybody to teach me anything except for RU-vid so thank you very much my good brother

Thanks for sharing. It's easy to post video's when you look like a superstar, not so easy to post a video when you make a mistake. As a newbie in the field it was a good learning vid for me to watch. Glad no one was hurt. Like Reg Coates says, don't make a F it cut as it could be your last. Thanks again for sharing, keep the vids coming.

The forces involved are massive. High mass accelerating over distance. I'm in no way a tree professional, although I do climb communication towers at times for work and I'm taking a 15M gum down in my own backyard in Queensland Australia. I weighed a small piece of timber, 18cm dia x 25cm long. It was nearly 5Kg. Catastrophic failures are rarely the result of one factor. Thank God no one was hurt and no property damaged. Telstra, where I started my career in communications, had a WHS motto. "No job is so important, nor service so urgent, that we cannot take the time to do our work safely." Thank you for your content production and the education it brings to many people.

Thanks for not covering this up and actually sharing it! Great learning tool. Couple things, you mentioned using the second spar to share weight.. yes, that does alievate some of the "weight" felt on your main spar because of the change of rope angle. That's something we're taught all the time.. but what we don't (and SHOULD!) emphasize is the downside of this method. When we do what you did, it puts enormous SIDE LOAD on our spar. The tree can handle enormous down force, but can't handle side force near as well because of how the grains and fibers grow. Lets call the spar you rigged from your primary spar and the spar you "spread the load to," your secondary spar. If you put a block on the LIMB you rigged and ran a line through the secondary spar's block, then the LIMBS block, then ANCHORED the rope to the primary spar, that still would add side load, but it would spread the load more evenly. Also, you'd be creating a 2-1 ADVANTAGE on your rig rigged limb, which means your portawrap feels half the load. And if your portawrap feels half the load, that means you rigging point (which is now your secondary spar) would feel half the load it normally would. And normally the rigging spar feels double the weight because it creating a 2-1 against us. So now its closer to the actually weight, the 2-1's almost cancel each other out. Now if you move your friction device (portawrap or even better, safebloc) up to your secondary spar and replace your block with it, you're getting rid of (almost) the 2-1. Given, like you said, this tree and situation was SKETCH, but if the friction was moved up to the rigging point and you set up a 2-1 as opposed to two rigging points, the tree miiiiiight have handled it. I don't know if I explained it good enough, do you follow? Not bashing you or what you do, you're a boss, but there's always new methods that all of us can learn. Theres a bunch of your videos that I thought I wouldn't learn anything from but have since been mentally slapped and humbled

Well done for putting it up. Every days a school day my friend

Thank you for sharing this. Youre helping keep guys safe.

Thanks for sharing. We learn more by the mistakes we make, than the routine stuff we do.

been climbing 4 33 yrs never do things go wrong with out u knowing in yr soul b4 it happens , but the problem is that at times we just don't listen 2 that inner voice that tell u NO !~!!

Experience comes from makin mistakes, but Knowledge comes from anyone who has the “ahems “ to share their mistakes. Thanks 😊

Wise and sobering discussion about the unforgiving nature of physics and complacency... thanks for sharing your failures so we can all be reminded.

So awesome that you shared this with us! yep the old f@#$ it cut, bites me every time lol. Be Well

Really appreciate you sharing this "and it was all going so well..." moment. Stories (and now videos) are a very effective and time-tested way of conveying important lessons in memorable ways. You may have saved someone from having to experience this first hand. Maybe even me.

Thoughts and speech full of wisdom. You have perfectly demonstrated the risks of a "sc..w it" cut... Definetely a good "lessons learnt" film... Not only a "fail" one, more than this, your analysis and explanations should sound as a reminder for "green guys" and older ones that only one time is enough for big troubles, no matter how many times you did this before... To finish, as Jay says, it's easy to show the best of the huge riggins that were made, but much more difficult to display things going wrong... But you did it, and you did well... Thanks for sharing...!

I’ve been working my dads tree business with him and my brother, thing is we only have a 60 foot bucket truck, (straight up and down) and there have been so many instances where there’s 30 feet or more branches swing down, that’s one of the main reasons why I do want to climb, is if I ever need to do that. But moral of the story, you’re videos are seriously amazing! You go in depth with everything your doing, explaining it and explaining the do’s and donts. I love the tree business, and I think I’d have that much more love when I start climbing. Keep up the good work man!

I am so impressed with this video and more so the interaction between the family members of this business. I didn't read every comment but what I did ready was wonderful the way others came not to condemn but help by sharing their experience. I know, as my dad would put it, just enough to be dangerous and therefore I stay out of it. Maybe by showing this video more people like me will know that you can't fudge it. This business looks to be very unforgiving. Thank you

Thanks for putting it up and sharing your experience. Smaller tops .. smaller tops .. even when it seems like you can get away with it. Thanks tree mugs

Now that's something you don;t see everyday.. Definitely showing some humility, which is a rare commodity in this business... Thanks for sharing. I definitely DO NOT subscribe to the go smaller teachings.. Smaller is not always safer.... Understanding all the principles of physics involved in rigging large pieces allows one to make a cut like this work. That was not a very big top.. There were A LOT of things that could have been done differently that almost certainly would have made the difference there.. maybe any one of them alone would have made the difference, but certainly in total this could have been easily accomplished.

Awesome learning tool. Takes a lot of integrity to allow others to learn from this. Thanks.

thanks for posting! this video will help us all work safer and smarter. Real learning in this business is always humbling, but hopefully not too painful. I'm no physics expert but I've definitely learned over many years to listen to the quiet inner voice(or gut). sometimes I'll stop what we're doing and say, "something doesn't feel right" and we'll do it differently. When I do negative rigging of tops, I'll use a safeblock up high and a large portawrap at the base of tree. I use a 9/16ths Samson stable braid rope, and I make a couple spiral turns down the stem for structural integrity and added friction before wrapping on the portawrap. If I ever had to do a top the seemed to large for this system, I'd be looking for a crane. If not a crane I would put a multi- sheave block on both the rigging spar and the top being rigged and spiral the rope down to a large portawrap.

There's a beautiful irony to the fact that your posting of this actually makes you seem more legitimate (when the video is of a fail), most youtubers selectively-omit fails from their stream for the obvious reason but you including this doesn't make you seem amateur it makes you seem more professional because you're comfortable enough to show it and, obviously, thanks a ton for this it was great to watch I'm VERY glad that you did know you were making a 'Fuck It cut'(TM Reg Coates lol) in regards to that rigging point, would be a bit unsettling to hear "It seemed great and suddenly/unexpectedly failed" yknow? Will say I'm surprised that load was enough to shatter the *2nd* rigging point (if I'm seeing that correctly, the trunk that crown came from was taking the brunt of the load, I don't know the #'s on how loads spread but the 2nd anchor doesn't get as much as the 1st..), glad you showed this I had never heard to "make sure things are loaded in compression" before I mean sure that's obvious in some cases but thinking of it as a general, ever-present rule is a great way to think! In reading your summary of this video (not the article, about to read that!) you mention rigging-rings and specifically the Safebloc - I'll give you that you put out that 3:44 long video on the Safebloc but I'd love to see more on the X line of anchors, I just got the Safebloc (w/o a sling, still deciding what to make for it) and the 3-ringed (2 large rings/1 XL ring) 3/4", 5 or 6' long sling, think 5/8" Polydyne will be the line I'll use through them but gotta get that, am finding a surprising lack of coverage by youtube-arborists on these I think I've exhausted all the good ones in several days (I only watch like 30min every AM with coffee / while stretching&waking) and while I'm still uncertain how the Safebloc helps reduce load on the point it's anchored to - in my mind the physics would make it snap on that anchor even harder - but you, August & Coates all say so.....so I'm happy to accept it haha and stoked to have this gear I'd just love to see some more because the X sling line lets you do sooo much (infinitely!)varied rigging setups so it's a more-is-better thing hell I've yet to see a video where someone's utilizing *2* Safeblocs on a line, one of Driver's videos about the ring-slings does show it being used as a basal anchor but it's unclear if they're using another up top as the video's a quick mash-up type, I'm thinking that the more rings & Safeblocs you can get on your line, and the more you can spread the load, the better (well, wouldn't do more than 2 Safeblocs w/o knowing others were doing it successfully, but wouldn't hesitate to use a 2nd one if it was a basal anchor 20'+ away from the top-anchor Safebloc (hell you could tether a sling to a trunk anywhere along the bull line's path and have a Safebloc anywhere on the rope's path) am glad I got such a good deal on my first two items from this line because already know I'll need at least a couple more so that I can always equalize loads as much as the surrounding trunks allow!!

At least everyone was ok. Things happen and I respect the fact that you are sharing this mistake. We learn from mistakes my friend. Thanks for sharing. God bless!!!

Glad everyone is ok. I would like one of the spider lifts. But I've always wondered what would happen if something went wrong. Like a decent size top slamming into it or something like what happenned in this vid. If that chunk would have slammed the machine, boom or outriggers. I'm used to a bucket truck and if something gets away from me if it would be at the back of the truck. Hopefully. Glad you're ok. Thanks for the vid.

I just bought an 85’ model bucket truck and it’s a work in progress. But you kinda kept me on track the bucket is not the the end all. Thanks for that. Stay safe brother

Hey Muggs. Takes a man to get on here and show a screw up! I have learned a ton from watching your vid's and hopefully you sharing your mistake will keep me from making the same one. Appreciate you taking the time to share your knowledge.

Even more miraculous is that no headstones were crushed. Thanks for posting. The best lessons always come out of close calls. I love all these statements about physics!

Wow, that was awesome! Really demonstrates the force generated in the "minute"? I don't really remember the math and physics to calculate that kind of drop, but there's certainly no way of predicting the break force of dead wood. Thanks for sharing this. So glad no one was hurt and we all get to learn.

Appreciate your honesty and lessons! Thank you!

Here in Germany we say: "Wo gehobelt wird fallen Späne!" Shit happens! Thanks for sharing!

Thanks for this video and advice, btw its hard to hear you in the parts where you are in the shop....

Stay humble...humble gets u home in 1 piece. Complacency & over-confidance gets u in deep trouble. I'm dismantling a forked dead oak & I'm taking my time with it. 2day was a good day, I should finish tomorrow but if I need to finish the next day I'm fine with that.

You do not climb long dead trees. If a tree has been let go so long that it is dangerous, then refuse to bid, drop if from the ground, get a much bigger lift. You do not climb long dead trees,,, and especially if there is a hanger that wants to kill you.

Show me a man who never made a mistake and I’ll show you a man who never made anything! Thanks for this vid, like you said, it is easy for complacency to creep in and if this can happen to the experienced pros, how careful the less experienced need to be.

Respect for posting it accidents can happen my friend, to bad it was on a funeral place, a old climber told me ones, climb high and cut small..

Don't know if you monitor your old posts Patrick ? but here goes...... what i wanted to ask is...... What was the max wk'g height of that bucket?. ...Only asking because I've had an opportunity recently and am considering the pro's and cons of buying a spider-lift. It is 16m (around 52 ft) capacity and 7m(23feet) out reach., do you think that would've been enough to tackle that tree? i.e get higher/cut smaller bits?. Its hard to justify a bucket truck purchase, less difficult to justify a reasonably priced spiderlift for an ageing one man operation......the costs just spiral.......but a spiderlift is less costly (!) to feed. I'm sure It could make its insurance/loler costs and i could hire it out manned to local tree guys/tradesmen and open up other work hopefully.... This is all hypothetical of course because I'd have to sneak this idea past my missus who'd inevitably say ' OW MUCH ?!?..yes I am under the kosh haha

I work in a local hospital and run a small tree service, we recently had a patient who made the same exact cut but the top hit the bucket and sent the climber up n out of the bucket 50 ft to the ground (wasn't tethered to the bucket), climbers on a ventilator n basically brain dead, so sad...so glad ur ok bro, b careful out there boys!

you had to know it wasn't gonna hold. I've seen enough of ur videos to know u knew better. thanks for sharing though and I'm glad no one got hurt.

When you have a situation like that you can use a 5 /16 or 3/8 chain, And chain above your undercut and below your undercut. It is important to take black electrical tape and tape the hook to the chain that way when it goes through it's violent shaking it doesn't come unhooked works every time.

Stick with yer gut! Go Boston Bruins! Glad everyone stay’d safe brother!

glad your ok and the ground guys are ok any piece of equipment can be replaced.

this... as a newly graduated apprentice in this business... scares the living sh*t outta me. ive never seen it happen.. wtf.. good to see. its burned in my mind now. i got so much to learn ffs

Good call on not climbing it, glad you're safe!

When you said cemetery initially thought uh-oh...

Thanks for sharing, love your videos 👍👍

Thanks for sharing this video.

with the benefit of your current knowledge, it would be great if you could share how you would handle this job. Bigger crane?

I had to watch this many times before I realized what actually happened. I kept seeing a tree come from nowhere and couldnt figure out what it was. lol I didnt get it when you said" lost the rigging point". It ripped the tree next to you apart and almost nailed your butt!! How close was it?? Hard to tell from the angle of your video. Ive had some close calls with trees but never up that high. Im sure you already know how lucky you are to be alive!!

How do you get a file that aggressive? It sounds like you're taking big bites out of that chain with minimal effort. Maybe it's just the way the sound is coming through my speakers.

Patrick, I really, REALLY enjoy your thinking approach: thought-provoking is SO much better than anything involving the word epic. But though I can't claim special expertise, I haven't reached all the same conclusions as you on this one. First, rigging in this way will have made for quite a bit of side load on both spars (pulling them together) when the weight came on, and they were both long levers: I'm not convinced that using fishing pole rigging and moving the portawrap would have made the difference, given the woodpecker's efforts. What certainly would, would have been a backstay running from the top of the spar that broke to the base of the tree which is visible at 4:29...IF you had a spare rigging rope AND IF it was long enough. But then this would have transferred more force to pulling the spar you cut towards the one that broke...and if that should have snapped instead, the risks are at least as great. I wonder whether the up and down force might in fact have been tolerable for the spar you cut (given it was a straight one) had you instead rigged from its base without a redirect. But thinking this then throws focus on the rigging pulley and on its mounting, which would have had to take more force. I was impressed that the pinto took all it was given, as it's rated for light rigging - at 'only' 50kN - and this led me to wonder if not having a heavier block than this might have been a background factor in nudging you towards using the redirect in this case. I do hate to join the group of those for whom the solution always seems to be more (expensive) equipment but this seems to be leading me there. However, after following the train of thought up to this point, I ended up thinking that perhaps the biggest factor of all was the topping strop: I cannot see exactly how it was tied to take up slack, but looking at how much lower the final position of the pinto was from where it started out means that through all of that distance that great big weight was building up momentum largely unrestrained. And part of the reason why I so appreciate your thoughtful exposure and analysis of this incident is that only this morning I was thinking that I really need the heavyweight block so seldom that what I could do with is a lightweight rigging pulley.....and while attracted by the pinto loopie (and being unable to splice competently) I was toying with the idea of knotting a 16mm strop for a pinto rig+spacer, so that I would still be able to untie it and use the pulley in other applications. What I was thinking was surely....surely it must be possible to configure a bowline holding a pinto so that the force is absorbed in the cow hitch and not the bowline. I ended up thinking that it would be (possible) but this evening and after watching your video I am less sure, and less inclined to go off-piste. That's what I meant by thought-provoking...Thanks again. Stephen.

I'm sure glad for you everybody is ok.

May be a dumb question that’s already been answered but which part of the system broke?

Great advice

Good news.....I don't think it bothered him. Lol good video. Sometimes your better off not sharing the load. The way it was set up you were pulling the one piece sideways wich weakens it, in addition you had somewhat of a mechanical advantage on the piece that broke. But if the wood was sound I'm sure it would have worked. Thanks for sharing.

That was a huge top my dude lol!

Glad your safe. Yikes.

Thank you my friend

Glad your ok could of be bad thanks for the eye opener I was told to never make a fuck it cut but have just got lucky 😎👍

Yer bro" just think its good ya made a vid from it to help others, alot wouldent. Was little crane an option?

Letting the "work" run like you did (as far as you did ) it's very evident why this happened...

Scary if you ever even have to think you might be going too big it's to big climb hire and peice it out if it's too dead to climb higher a crane glad everyone is ok

TreeMuggs… would the way you had that system rigged up not put substantial side load on both spars you are rigging from? Pulling the two spars laterally toward each other?

The bottom line is, that with the more experience that we gain we tend to do more risky things, "because we know how to do it" but this accidents help us to think before we do it again

Lateral pressure

Man o Man Patrick. I hope that echo's in alot of minds. Physics doesn't care. Physics isn't personal. Fckn aye.

Good Video. Choosing rigging and tie in points are so critical in working safely in unhealthy or dead trees! Would prefer to tie off higher than working point in and adjacent working healthy

Thanks for sharing ..

Where does complacency come into play here? That you didn't spend the time to figure a way to piece it out? That's the only way I can imagine; if that was your rigging setup used to take the rest of the tree apart, and you were given no counter-indications of potential weak points anywhere in that system, Then I think what you did is what (probably) most climbers would have done in that situation. So don't feel too down on yourself about it. One learns a hell of a lot climbin trees everyday (massive understatement), most of which is shit that couldn't possibly be taught in a book, or a class, or learned in any other way besides being there when it happens. At one point or another, irrespective of experience, literally everyone I've worked with has been surprised by something a tree does that they've never heard or seen before in their life. This leads in to the point I'm getting at: one of the most important things we learn (and would do well to come to terms with) is that when you're doing tree work, unexpected shit WILL happen. The frequency at which shit goes sideways on you is dependent on a wide array of variables; many of which will be mitigated and controlled for by a competent climber. And here's my point -- take the best climber in the world, the best that's ever lived let's say, and he's as badass as one could be... but he's gonna have shit go sideways on him from time to time. It's just how the universe works, man. You're not ever gonna be perfect. You're not ever gonna be able to control for all variables. That's not possible - there's just too many. Physics will have new lessons for you for as long as you're positioned to learn a lesson. You know what I'm talking about. So don't expect too much from yourself. Expect a lot... just not too much. It's easy to think of the things you coulda done, because hindsight is 20/20. It's impossible to have the clarity of that perspective in the moment, so it isn't reasonable to be hard on yourself about something like this. This happened maybe because you got a bit lazy, but you didn't do anything 'stupid'. We know what stupid looks like, and that wasn't it. You had no way of knowing that spar would pop off friggin sideways like that - no way. It wasn't apparent to me that would be the outcome - and I have a good eye for that stuff. In fact, what actually occurred was so unexpected in my mind that I wasn't sure wtf was actually happening until the repeated part was almost over. That whole scaffold popping way down low like that was way down the list of possible outcomes in that scenario. I wonder if it confused your brain for a second there when it happened - did it take a second to register what actually occurred? Or did you know immediately that the secondary had popped off? Watching the vid a second time through knowing what's going to happen, it all becomes apparent; everything was going great for that first half-second when gravity took control, falling where you apparently wanted it, but then outta nowhere, you hear a "pop" from below. I only noticed that sound once the situation clicked in my mind. Watching through a buncha repeats at first, it never registered. Able to hear that sound clear as a bell once my brain figured it out though. That's wild, man. No way you could have predicted that. Improving yourself as a climber - and as a man - isn't all about getting so good that you never make mistakes, it's about developing the strength of your character so that when shit happens, you respond to it most appropriately. There's a lesson tucked away in every dynamical situation we might observe or participate in; a good man looks for that hidden lesson, so that he might learn, and grow. I can get a sense if a guy is a good climber or not within seconds of watching what he does in a tree. I have a similar accuracy in sensing generally if someone is a good man, again, needing only a couple few seconds of observation. My senses indicate positively to me that you meet the bar in both regards. Cheers brother - I'm proud of what I see here..

Tap that file on the vice to remove the fines from the file. Good info.

I had some scary s*** happen today and it made me think of this video because physics doesn't care about you

That was all placement of your rigging points. You put them directly next to eachother.. you don't want to "spread you load" you want to "distribute" your load so to speak.. right downwards to the bottom of the tree on your main rigging spar. Set your rigging point up in a configuration that sets the load of max point of force into the spar your rigging on. NOT WITH A FISHING POLE THATS BADDDD SHIT. And add some Arial friction fuck pulleys and blocks.. 😜 if you want I can draw you up a diagram if you aren't catching my drift🤙🏼

Thx

Be safe friend.

Every accident I've seen is because of big pieces. Same has lazy climbers, on these case you weren't lazy, just using equipment that you not use to it.

Crane...

Every time I watch it my stomach cringes

Shouldve just climbed out of bucket and pieced it down. Chicken!

This is what can happen when you let the "work" run (too much)...

Use a throw bag from the lift

save your money and get a rear mount bucket truck..fuck that climbing..best thing ever ever ever i did before i totally ruined my body...production easily doubled with all the time saved..

In these situations I just burn the tree where it stands

Di rather spike than use a bucket truck.

Good call not climbing it tho id say lol.

Aaaaand now your haunted.

I really dig your thoughtful nature. In my profession (not tree work) I do a lot of Root Cause Analysis to get to the heart of why something bad happened. The “5 Why’s” is my favorite tool within RCAs. What you will not find in a book is the concept that a person or people are at the heart of every problem. Either by their actions or omission of action. It is a very sobering and immovable fact that I/we caused the problem. The Root Cause is people but what can be done to mitigate our exposure to future problems is the take-away. Great vid.

The bottom line: Don't rig high on rotten trees.