Tree down, Ebley cut off
Tree down, Ebley cut off
by: David M
The stiff breezes of early January brought down one of the yews (heavy with ivy) just upstream of the swing bridge at Ryeford. The team on Wookey Hole made short work of the branches blocking the towpath, but the canal itself remained impassable.
We took Samson up and used the crane to pull close, to give access to chainsaw large branches off. A hopper was brought up, which was eventually filled with the main part of the tree.
In a second visit, and with the help of workboat Jasper, we were able to separate some of the bank-side roots, and take off more of the main branches, leaving the channel clear for navigation subject to some debris underwater. The main root, however, seemed to go vertically down into the canal bed, and foiled our attempts to waggle the stump out with the crane, given both the root resistance and the soggy weight.
Not to be outdone, we found and refurbished our Tirfor hand winch, a ratchet device geared so that some hard work on a lever gives a 1.6 tonne pull on the steel cable running through the machine anchored to another tree. The Tirfor cable was attached to a strop low down around the stump base, and with the help of the crane, we finally hauled it out of the canal bed.
Too heavy to lift out, so probably over 1.5 tonne weight, the stump was towed/dragged back to the unloading dock at Harpers Field, with some manual bow-hauling, and help in the latter stages from tug Margaret.
The 13-tonne excavator was able to lift the stump out, although the chain ring broke before it cleared the water. Fortunately it was close enough to scoop out and drag up the bank.
