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It all comes down to physics, which was a high school subject I only spent two weeks in .. It was not that I couldn't grasp it, but it became obvious it was going to suck up all of my allowable homework time. There is little time for school work when you are raised on a farm having little choice but to use methods and equipment stuck in a 1920's-50's timeframe.. And in that, you learn hoisting and all kinds of handy old-time ways of necessity because you do not have access to modern equipment nor fancy tools ..
To save a young new driver his job, there are no pictures to post of today's mishap, but I assure you it was a sight to see.. I preface this by saying there was 5 inches of rain in the last 24hrs, it was pouring and poor visibility as he was headed to the receiver's place with a 45ft flatbed of palletized stone and building materials .. The old town road to get there is dirt and narrow, takes a skilled driver to traverse it without trouble.. He admitted he did not get out and walk ahead to look over the situation, nor did he wait for the rain let up so he could see better. He could not see anything in his mirrors since it was raining so hard. On a very tight reverse-curve, he managed to put the entire left side of the trailer wheelset into a deep ditch and the entire left leg of the landing gear against the inlet of a 4ft-round culvert. Luckily he had made an LTL delivery the hour before thus the back half of the trailer was empty , except for his Tag-a-Long forklift. One midspan pallet of building materials had broken free and lay on the far bank of the ditch, but the pallets of stone and other items remained on the front half. The trailer showed an impressive amount of flexibility midspan because the tractor was still up on the road, kingpin intact, yet the back end of trailer was twisted at a 40-degree slant from horizontal..
I eventually came across this pathetic sight.. The poor guy was in a panic to say the least.. There was no cell service, no neighbors nearer than a mile, no traffic, and any big hook was over an hour away including my M62 .. Many professional drivers have at least one major F-Up during their career, myself included, and a fresh driver should never have been sent onto a road like this, that particular carrier's dispatcher has been warned about the road before.. Let's just say with reverse curves on a road where two cars can barely squeeze by each other, plus a hairpin curve in there as well and a turnaround at the receiver's place that barely can handle a 53ft trailer, it's no place for an Effengee.. Well, heavy recovery, hoisting, and rollovers are nothing new to me thus I had to at least try to get his trailer slid back up onto the old town road.. Yes, liability comes to mind and has to be considered, but the ditch and shoulder was muddy and slick enough, a normal attempt just might work.. If anything looked like it was to break or be dangerous, I will always say "sorry no" to a stranger... If the back half of the trailer had been loaded there was no way I would have attempted it, and using an M817 instead of the M62 was going to be a challenge all its own.. Driver managed to get the Tag-a-Long disconnected from the back of the trailer but it was also buried in the mud and running water and leaning heavy to one side like the back of the trailer in that 4ft-deep x 6ft-wide ditch .. My M817's winch has a level-winder but no tensioner... This was a good thing because it allowed for some unusual physics to come into play with this style winch. Remember physics? This is a story about physics.
Re-routing the hook-end of the cable over the top of the bumper and so that it was no longer involved with the bottom roller, this put the entire pivot point onto the level-winder sheave.. I did not use the winch gears to pull.. Instead, we used it for leverage and traction by making the hitch short as possible, the cable would stay at an adequate upwards angle to not damage the sheave guide, and it would provide an upwards lift of the ditch-side of the victims in concert with the pull.. Thanks to the added weight put upon its front axle due to the new routing of the cable, the empty M817 managed to back up in low range at an idle with just a very little wheel slip on the rears, thus the Tag-a-Long slid semi-sideways up and out of the ditch, needing every bit of the uplift and angle of pull the M817 could give it .. Physics.
Next, getting the rear wheels of the half-loaded trailer up and out of there was obviously going to require the help of the tractor truck .. When I inquired, I was pleased to hear the truck had cross-lockers (as well as diff-lock) and I hate to say this but I was glad it was an automatic. Thusly, the driver was able to give the trailer a steady controlled push backwards with minimum wheelslip as the physics of the winch cable routing and the M817's sure-footedness provided the lift and pull needed to get the trailer wheels slid semi-sideways up out of the ditch and back onto the road. I am amazed the cable or something else on the winch did not snap.. Also, his trailer frame and bracing appeared intact and straight after it was on the level.. The driver was beyond grateful .. His delivery point was another 1/8th-mile and I suggested he and the receiver's heavy equipment mechanic/welder inspect his trailer for cracks, broken welds, bolts, etc after he got unloaded, and before he went anywhere else. Like a good sergeant I told him every driver has his first really bad day and this was his, he was alive, nothing seems to be busted, got the dumped pallet reloaded, that he was to learn from it, and unlike truck school, real life has no limit on how many "get outs" a driver should take when a situation is in question... There were no names nor pictures taken, no witnesses, and no way this sort of thing could ever have gone as well as it did had there been traffic.. Not one vehicle passed. Nothing but two trucks in pouring rain surrounded by mud and trees.. Hey, that sounds like springtime in the army I was in !! The only thing lacking was the giant mosquitoes and C-rats
To save a young new driver his job, there are no pictures to post of today's mishap, but I assure you it was a sight to see.. I preface this by saying there was 5 inches of rain in the last 24hrs, it was pouring and poor visibility as he was headed to the receiver's place with a 45ft flatbed of palletized stone and building materials .. The old town road to get there is dirt and narrow, takes a skilled driver to traverse it without trouble.. He admitted he did not get out and walk ahead to look over the situation, nor did he wait for the rain let up so he could see better. He could not see anything in his mirrors since it was raining so hard. On a very tight reverse-curve, he managed to put the entire left side of the trailer wheelset into a deep ditch and the entire left leg of the landing gear against the inlet of a 4ft-round culvert. Luckily he had made an LTL delivery the hour before thus the back half of the trailer was empty , except for his Tag-a-Long forklift. One midspan pallet of building materials had broken free and lay on the far bank of the ditch, but the pallets of stone and other items remained on the front half. The trailer showed an impressive amount of flexibility midspan because the tractor was still up on the road, kingpin intact, yet the back end of trailer was twisted at a 40-degree slant from horizontal..
I eventually came across this pathetic sight.. The poor guy was in a panic to say the least.. There was no cell service, no neighbors nearer than a mile, no traffic, and any big hook was over an hour away including my M62 .. Many professional drivers have at least one major F-Up during their career, myself included, and a fresh driver should never have been sent onto a road like this, that particular carrier's dispatcher has been warned about the road before.. Let's just say with reverse curves on a road where two cars can barely squeeze by each other, plus a hairpin curve in there as well and a turnaround at the receiver's place that barely can handle a 53ft trailer, it's no place for an Effengee.. Well, heavy recovery, hoisting, and rollovers are nothing new to me thus I had to at least try to get his trailer slid back up onto the old town road.. Yes, liability comes to mind and has to be considered, but the ditch and shoulder was muddy and slick enough, a normal attempt just might work.. If anything looked like it was to break or be dangerous, I will always say "sorry no" to a stranger... If the back half of the trailer had been loaded there was no way I would have attempted it, and using an M817 instead of the M62 was going to be a challenge all its own.. Driver managed to get the Tag-a-Long disconnected from the back of the trailer but it was also buried in the mud and running water and leaning heavy to one side like the back of the trailer in that 4ft-deep x 6ft-wide ditch .. My M817's winch has a level-winder but no tensioner... This was a good thing because it allowed for some unusual physics to come into play with this style winch. Remember physics? This is a story about physics.
Re-routing the hook-end of the cable over the top of the bumper and so that it was no longer involved with the bottom roller, this put the entire pivot point onto the level-winder sheave.. I did not use the winch gears to pull.. Instead, we used it for leverage and traction by making the hitch short as possible, the cable would stay at an adequate upwards angle to not damage the sheave guide, and it would provide an upwards lift of the ditch-side of the victims in concert with the pull.. Thanks to the added weight put upon its front axle due to the new routing of the cable, the empty M817 managed to back up in low range at an idle with just a very little wheel slip on the rears, thus the Tag-a-Long slid semi-sideways up and out of the ditch, needing every bit of the uplift and angle of pull the M817 could give it .. Physics.
Next, getting the rear wheels of the half-loaded trailer up and out of there was obviously going to require the help of the tractor truck .. When I inquired, I was pleased to hear the truck had cross-lockers (as well as diff-lock) and I hate to say this but I was glad it was an automatic. Thusly, the driver was able to give the trailer a steady controlled push backwards with minimum wheelslip as the physics of the winch cable routing and the M817's sure-footedness provided the lift and pull needed to get the trailer wheels slid semi-sideways up out of the ditch and back onto the road. I am amazed the cable or something else on the winch did not snap.. Also, his trailer frame and bracing appeared intact and straight after it was on the level.. The driver was beyond grateful .. His delivery point was another 1/8th-mile and I suggested he and the receiver's heavy equipment mechanic/welder inspect his trailer for cracks, broken welds, bolts, etc after he got unloaded, and before he went anywhere else. Like a good sergeant I told him every driver has his first really bad day and this was his, he was alive, nothing seems to be busted, got the dumped pallet reloaded, that he was to learn from it, and unlike truck school, real life has no limit on how many "get outs" a driver should take when a situation is in question... There were no names nor pictures taken, no witnesses, and no way this sort of thing could ever have gone as well as it did had there been traffic.. Not one vehicle passed. Nothing but two trucks in pouring rain surrounded by mud and trees.. Hey, that sounds like springtime in the army I was in !! The only thing lacking was the giant mosquitoes and C-rats
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Arlo's head went places nobody else would ever fathom, let-alone sing about... There is no way I can go out and operate a winch now. Remember the winch? We have to stay on topic and this thread is about a winch. Errr, physics.
