A Bigger Crane (laugh 'til it Hurts)

http://www.methodshop.net/tech/articles/biggercrane/index.shtml ^

[Straight Vermonter]

A Bigger Crane?

Sometimes it's just better to leave some things alone.

Date Created: 10/30/2004

Last Updated: 12/12/2004

Authors: A. PERRY

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OCT 2004 - An unfortunate parking accident in Galway, Ireland sends a small white hatchback into the cold bay waters of Roundstone, Co. What happens next is the exciting part. Makes you wonder if any of these guys ever had the right tools for the job.

1) With a submerged car in the water, Walsh's Recovery is called in to help fish it out.
2) The crane starts to lean forward
3) Oops! Make that two vehicles in the water.
4) Maybe they should have used a bigger crane.
5) After the Walsh's Recovery crane takes a drink, they decide to bring in the big guns. Michael Long's Truck & Crane Hire sends over a Palfinger crane and plucks the hatchback out of the water with ease.
6) The catch of the day.
7) Now it's time to pull the Walsh crane out of the water.
8) Oh no. The Walsh crane is starting to go down!
9) Time to hit the pubs. Hope the guy with the white car bought the first round.

In case you were wondering, no one was seriously hurt. Just a few bruised egos.

[Publius6961]

A bigger crane?

[SouthernFreebird]

Hmmmmm those cars in the back ground keep changing.

[Keith in Iowa]

The last two photos are suspect at best...

http://www.snopes.com/photos/accident/crane.asp

[Lunkhead_01]

I hate to ask if the Irish guy in the white vehicle had been drinking.

[Snagglepuss]

Denny Crane

[Vermonter]

If you look at the people in #4 and then compare them to themselves in #9, it becomes obvious this was Photoshopped.

Don''t feel bad, I posted it about a week ago and someone found it in my copy then

Merry Christmas...... and stay warm ;-}

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

"Hmmmmm those cars in the back ground keep changing."


Everybody knows it only takes a few seconds to find a crane and rig it to lift an object in the water. LOL

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[SouthernFreebird]

Yeah but the red car is gone then reappears in the last photo. Look closer.

[Paladin2]

Better setup. Looks like lifting over the side is not good. Better to go from the rear, but that would have taken mmore maneouvering to get set-up.

Also a good example of benefits of being able to do some quick math/physics on the back of an envelope.

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

So the guy in the red car came back from lunch.

[Elsiejay]

The tree branches are not present, then they are present . . . .?

[chronic_loser]

sorry. faked. these were on instapundit yesterday.

[Straight Vermonter]

Oh well. I got a laugh out of it anyway.

[laishly]

Notice the incongruity in the background. Observe the red car and white dingy by the red boat when the first crane is working in frames 1-4. Then notice they are gone in frames 5-8 and the red car is replaced with a black van when the second crane is working, but the red car and white dingy return in the final frame 9 when the second crane hits the drink. Who put this together? Dan Rather?

[backhoe]

I ran John's Wrecker Service here from 1991 to 1999. That type of knuckleboom crane recovery is popular in Europe ( recall Di's car being lifted? ) and they are trying to introduce them here, with some success.

You'll notice the first truck in the water has a tilt-bed body-- what we call a "rollback wrecker" here, so it is not merely a knuckleboom crane-- it's a type of wrecker.

This type of crane does not have a counterweight, so its lift is limited by the weight of the truck it's attached to, to distance the steadying legs ( outriggers ) and the lever-arm of the extended boom. Obviously, the farther you extend the arm, the less it can lift safely without tipping.

It's strictly a numbers game- you have to know the weight of your truck and make an accurate guesstimate ( not hard to do with experience ) of the load's weight. The fulcrum is the point where the outrigger contacts the ground.

The first truck, if it had outriggers, did not seem to use them, and is cattywhompus to the load. That waterlogged little car was heavier than they thought.

The second truck probably should have tried winching the first truck so it was parallel to the wall, rather than perpendicular, minimizing the need to extend the boom.

But an even bigger crane would have been better to start with.

[ThreePuttinDude]

The one constant in all the pictures, would be the blue van, and the silver car.
They seem to be in the same spot in all the pictures.

Just an observation.


Merry Christmas


TPD

[Who dat?]

The first truck, if it had outriggers, did not seem to use them, and is cattywhompus to the load.

I don’t know if the sequence of pictures has been modified or not….

But yes, we’d always try to lift fore/aft rather than over the side even with outriggers… though in our case the outriggers made it pretty stable side-to-side. Lifting over the back was considered better, even then.

[KoRn]

Mark



lol

[backhoe]

Lifting over the back was considered better, even then.

Yep- take advantage of the engine's weight as ballast. Some wreckers have rear outriggers, and I've seen operators use the rear spade ( for winching ) as an ad hoc outrigger to keep the rear end stable.

[DustyMoment]

Boortz had this on his website up to the point that the first crane went in the drink.

This could become a new reality series for TV.

[cd jones]

the people in #4 and #9 are in the EXACT same position

[Who dat?]

We never really had much call for lifting things. Not me personally.

Living in south and southeast TX, we mainly had jobs pulling stuck vehicles out of mud (“gumbo”).

Kids would run around thinking they had a “four-wheeler” and they’d run though a rice paddy or something and I’ve literally seen F-150’s stuck up to the mirrors. They literally had to roll down the windows and climb out because they couldn’t get the doors open, they were stuck so deep.

Somebody would know someone with a D3 and call them out. Often they’d fart around until they got stuck too. Then I’ve seen it where they called out the “real” heavy-equipment co. and they’d send out a D5/6 and they’d get stuck too. Not “bad-stuck,” but still stuck so they’d need help.

Finally they’d send out a D10 with about 6 miles of chain. They’d go back down the line in descending order, extracting everyone.

By the time they pulled the truck out it’d have serious suspension/frame damage. That’s where my little tow-truck (tilt-bed) came into play (that’s what I drove about 90% of the time). You get to see some interesting (and sometimes gross things driving a wrecker). Ha.

[KellyAdmirer]

The last picture obviously is faked. The fascinating thing to me, though, assuming the earlier pictures are real, is that the first truck didn't fall on the car and crush it.

[texasflower]

LOL!

[raybbr]

This reminds me of my neighboor two years ago. He called me up and said he lost one of his dogs, a boxer. I asked him what happened and he said he'd rather not get into it just now but could I help him look for her. I said sure.

We drove around for about 3 hours and finally found her. I asked him how she got lost. He has an electric fence.

He gave me a sheepish look and said that his Dodge Ram 3500 broke the line and dogs got past.

I asked how that happened.

He said, (this is true) "I got my John Deere lawn tractor out and I was cutting the grass growing up through the ice on the pond. It got stuck in the ice and mud. So, I got my Bobcat to pull it out and that got stuck. I then went to use the Dodge and while I was trying to pull the Bobcat out it slid sideways tearing the fence line and then got stuck up on the rear axle. The dogs got scared and ran off".

We spent four hours the next day getting his equipment out of the mud.

[Zuriel]

You're right. 4 and 9 have everything identical, except for the green boom truck that has no shadowing under it. A friend sent me that story over a week ago.

Being an artist, I noticed the details right away, the people in 4 and 9 in the same position, vehicle differences, the inflatable boat, etc. Being a bit of a perfectionist, he was a little embarrassed that he sent it out to so many friends.

[Mercat]

ping

[puppets]

haha but that's a well known hoax
the vehicle did fall in, the crane trying to pull it out did fall in, but the last crane did not fall in. Its some pretty lame Photoshopping even if the true story weren't in the public record. They could have at least moved the by-standers around and gotten rid of the white boat again- that's just lazy hoaxing.

[jamaly]

Bump to show Mr. JAMALY.

[backhoe]

We never really had much call for lifting things. Not me personally. Living in south and southeast TX, we mainly had jobs pulling stuck vehicles out of mud (“gumbo”). Kids would run around thinking they had a “four-wheeler” and they’d run though a rice paddy or something and I’ve literally seen F-150’s stuck up to the mirrors. They literally had to roll down the windows and climb out because they couldn’t get the doors open, they were stuck so deep. Somebody would know someone with a D3 and call them out. Often they’d fart around until they got stuck too. Then I’ve seen it where they called out the “real” heavy-equipment co. and they’d send out a D5/6 and they’d get stuck too. Not “bad-stuck,” but still stuck so they’d need help. Finally they’d send out a D10 with about 6 miles of chain. They’d go back down the line in descending order, extracting everyone. By the time they pulled the truck out it’d have serious suspension/frame damage. That’s where my little tow-truck (tilt-bed) came into play (that’s what I drove about 90% of the time). You get to see some interesting (and sometimes gross things driving a wrecker). Ha.

You surely get to see the absolute best and worst of people- it was very educational, although not anything I haven't seen before.

On the coast, we have two wonderful things for bogging vehicles- swamps, and sugar sand. Most people have seen some kind of swamp-- around here, they are marsh grass over grey clay, and nearly bottomless.

Sugar sand is what you get when sand is rolled endlessly at the mouth of the great primeval river that used to flow over this area-- think of tiny, white ballbearings, then think about what would happen if you tried to drive over a field of tiny white ballbearings...

[bad company]

Good eye.

[Goldbar]

I don't know if it is just me being tick here but surely in picture 5 and just visible in 6 is the red crane against the white building.
Could it be that the first crane decided to stop trying to lift the car out - imagine how may of the people standing in front of the crane in picture 2 would have been seriously injured otherwise. They then park up the vehicle and go and get a bigger one with out-riggers.
In 7 the red one is seen having moved - probably going home having seen how the job was meant to be done!