Thursday, January 3, 2008

ISA HK/China --- Fung Kai Tree Felling with Proper Rigging











Dear Station Members,

TCHK (http://hk.myblog.yahoo.com/treeclimbinghk) Members were invited on 29.12.07 to fell a hazard rated Delonix regia which straddled over the Snack Shop of Fung Kai School where students would queue for food & beverages during breaks. This tree had mushrooms growing all over the base during the initial Tree Inspection & then a detailed Risk Assessment.

The difficulty with felling this tree is that there were balustrades on one side & a canopy cover on the other side directly under the tree. Ordinary Drop Cut can not be used to remove the tree parts. No property damage could be anticipated in the devised operation. TCHK Members had thus devised a proper Rigging plan which was not commonly used in HK to fell the tree piece by piece with ropes, slings & pulleys. Full description of the operation with narration in Chinese is given in TCHK Blog mentioned above.

Every step of the operation had been required to follow international practice in equipment, planning & procedures, with no wood piece simply dropped to damage anything. The work started at 9am in the morning & went on to 8.30pm in the dark when the last piece was finally removed with Pulley Blocks & ropes. Several chainsaws of various sizes were deployed & the site was a spectacular scene of sawdust flying & thundering noise. Two Tree Climbers & several Groundsmen took turn to carry out the operation with luncheon boxes only for lunch. It had been proven that our local Tree Climbers would possess enough skill to carry out difficult operation of this kind & very rarely the public would see work of this kind to be carried out in private premises in our territory. Therefore, it is reported here to tell our Station Members that we can be proud of our local Tree Climbers & to celebrate the level of skills HK would now possess.

Tree Climbing requires not only stamina but also skills & experience. There is no instant method to train a skilled Tree Climber known around the world. Time & constant practice with endurance are the key, which why makes Tree Climbers such a special breed of their own. With our apparently advantageous strength to body weight ratio, ISA HK/China & TCHK do not see why our Chinese blood can not make an expert Climber to enter the world. The Fung Kai boys & girls have proven this fact & they will be entering the Australian Tree Climbing Competition in May in Brisbane to demonstrate themselves. HK is ready to show the world indeed.

TCHK will begin to provide training for Tree Climbing in various levels once its foundation can be settled step by step. TCHK will design its training programs to fit in with our local condition, taking into account of the needs of the HK public in reality with the physical condition of our people. TCHK aims to eventually provide the best training in HK & to follow the ISA Certification requirement of CTW. The first set of training programs is anticipated to be delivered by March this year. For anyone interested, please stay in touch with TCHK Blog given above.

By the way, TCHK Blog in Chinese appears to be more popular than our Station Blog in English, with over 1000 browsings in less than just two months. Details of this are given in the statistic count in the Blog.

HK will be proud to join the world to climb gradually.

best regards,

Sammy Au
Station Manager

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