Cable crane choker man at Inverliever
The photograph is courtesy of the family of George Dey. George took many forestry photographs in his forestry career and some are now shown on this web site.
A classic shot of a high lead cable crane in action as the choker man having hitched the large log onto the haul-in rope watches as the ropes tensions and starts the process of hauling the log up to the winch which is on the left hand side of the photograph.
Can anyone name the choker man?
The simple pulley carriage is clearly seen with the haul-back rope coming from the left hand side, through the top pulley, then continuing on to the spar tree pulley at the end of the rack and back to the middle of the pulley carriage where it is securely clamped on. In this picture the haul-back rope drum is heavily braked causing the carriage to stay in its present position. The haul-in drum clutch lever is pulled down to start pulling in the haul-in rope with its log. It will move towards the carriage and once up against the carriage the haul-back brake will be eased and the log plus carriage will move up towards the tractor and winch. By keeping some haul-back brake on the cables will tighten and cause some lift to ease the log over obstacles.
The log is fairly dried out and has likely been lying since the windblow in 1961/62.
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Groups: Forestry Areas, Forestry in Action, George Dey Forestry Collection, Timber harvesters, processors, forwarders and cable cranes