What a ride

In response to your article “What a ride” dated 17th May 2013 I would like to make comment which is as follows.
Firstly,
In my personal opinion the writer of the original article who I shall call Mr Doubting Thomas Scaremonger has very little knowledge of crane work, rigging, working at height or in fact any such knowledge of what the pictures show or what the event entails.
This was a charity Zipslide event which was set up by my company who have a 100% safety track record in these events since starting up in 1994, having more than 400 events under our belt and over 100,000 participants taking part since 1994 as well as helping charities to raise more than £8,000,000 from these events.
Your writer probably got his camera at Christmas and has a head full of “I thinks but I don’t really knows”
In your article you state the following:
One end of the zip wire is anchored to the crane’s two rear outrigger beams via a long canvas web lifting sling which has been tied to the beams.
In fact the 5-ton web slings which are tested on a 6 monthly basis and replaced every 12 months are choked to the outriggers and are inserted through a sling protector to prevent the web of the sling being damaged by any sharp edges. A pair of gloves can be seen behind the sling to prevent the eye of the sling rubbing against the outrigger.
The wire passes up over the cranes main boom nose
The wire passes through one of the sheaves on the main jib cat head which allows the wire to run on the sheave as the participant’s weight is taken on the wire rope to prevent chaffing.
and then the other end – some distance away is anchored to a special rear bumper of a truck using a Tirfor hand winch to tension it. The truck bed has a number filled bulk bags for counterweight.
It’s not a special rear bumper it’s a normal truck towing point which is good for 7-ton towing capacity if required.
The canvas slings that form part of the anchor are tied to the crane's outriggers

Once again, the slings are choked and not tied.

The landing stage is a tower made up of an odd mixture of scaffold components, mainly all-round/cuplock type system scaffold with four long tubes standing in as outriggers/stabilisers. A ladder is there for the children to descend, complete with a recoil lanyard for the harness.
The scaffold is a cuplock system scaffold complete with 4 x outriggers and the calculations have been made by a structural engineer. The only odd thing is the writer’s comments.
Why does he write children when clearly no children were taking part on the day, all participants were over the age of 16 years old and those under the age of 18 years old had written parental consent to take part and the parents were present on the day. The recoil lanyard is a fall arrest block specifically designed to assist in the prevention of a fall from height such as ladders stupid.
The counterweighted truck is the anchor at the other end of the zip wire

The truck’s kerb weight is 4-ton and has 3 x 1-ton bags of sand to act as a counterweight (7.5 ton in total)

It is clear from the photos that the arrangement was being used to some very young looking people a ride. A definite one for our Death Wish series (Try to make sense of your comments)

Once again a derogatory comment such as “Death Wish”, let’s hope your writer never needs the assistance of those charities who raise funds with events such as our Zipslides.

Vertikal Comment

Well where to start…. On the one hand a great deal of thought has clearly gone into rigging this up and risks have been considered and steps taken to cover them - such as the lanyard for the ladder and the cones and tape used under the wire, and the protection for the web slings on the outriggers.

And many will argue that this is probably safer than some of the contraptions that are rigged up in the woods on many an adventure course.

There are so many things that could have gone wrong, the web sling anchor and the knots that attach it to the outriggers just does not exactly give confidence. The truck sticking out towards the road and most of all that landing tower and those outriggers!

The truck was not sticking out towards the road, there was a space of 2m from the truck to the kerb line and the outriggers are essential for the stability and loading of the scaffold platform.

We have never fully agreed with the simplistic - hard line ‘ban-it’ approach of FEM that has now been softened, and do think that there is a case for cranes to be used for some events if well engineered, planned and executed. Or at least there is a case to be argued. This does not look like one of them though.

We understand that the wire crossed the river and was may have been the annual Zipwire River Langan event, with all the proceeds going to Marie Curie cancer care. While that doesn't change anything it does help to appreciate the positive motives of those who helped organise it.

To answer our readers question – not in a million years

Well guys, I thought that some of your comments were pretty good to start with but as your reply went on you have just let your mouth lead the way and your brain lag behind.

We were one of three companied who back in 2009 took part in a two day audit by the Health and Safety Laboratory at the River Lagan Belfast where your writer took his photos and made his comments.

We are the only company still in existence of the original three who took part in the audit.

From that audit a document was produced entitled “A study of good practice in the safety management of temporary zipwire events ES/FE/09/01.

This document which is 69 pages long covers every last detail in such events which we use as our Bible.

A comment made by another reader is as follows:
Float your load
May 17, 2013 22:43
Seems perfectly safe to me, what could possibly go wrong? apart from the strops snapping, the scaffolding collapsing, the tirfror giving way, the truck moving or extra fat kids on the rip line.. still, that's what risk assessments are for and am sure that they are all in place - well mostly anyway
Our reply: Are you related to Mr Doubting Thomas Scaremonger?

Seems perfectly safe to me, what could possibly go wrong ? apart from the strops snapping, the scaffolding collapsing, the tirfror giving way, the truck moving or extra fat kids on the rip line.. still, that's what risk assessments are for and am sure that they are all in place - well mostly anyway !