New rescue device a reassurance

Press, 18 August 1978, Page 11

New rescue device a reassurance

One good thing common to rope tows, T-bars, and pomas is that you have your skis on more or less reliable terra firma (preferably not too firma). Not so with chairlifts, which give me the heebiejeebies for want of a more earthy term. It is not so bad when you are actually moving and remember not to look down; the scary part is when the thing stops and your alternatives are to look down at the extent of the drop or to look up at the apparently slender “thread” from which you are hanging.

A recently invented rescue device in use at Mount Ruapehu, however, at least reduces the risk of getting chilled in a stalled chairlift. At Ruapehu, the lifts are up to 30 m off the ground and the weather can bring an 8 deg. drop in temperature with 50 km/h winds within half an hour.

The ingeniou.. piece of equipment, which enables ski patrollers to lower chairlift passengers to the ground, was designed by Messrs G. W. Painter and P. Walker. Dummy runs have shown that two rescue teams could clear a lift line in 30 min.

The designers realised that the Ruapehu chairs were too light and the winds too strong to use the overseas system dropping a line from the chair or throwing one from the ground. They fixed on the idea of moving a rescuer down the cable and — after six attempts — designed a light running block that could be worked with one hand. A would-be rescuer must climb a lift tower and fix the block to the cable. He is attached to the block in a bosun’s chair-cum-harness and, with the help of a line to the ground, moves down to the first chair. The stranded passenger is lowered to safety in a chest harness, with a special braking device helping the ground crew safely to belay him. The rescuer’s weight is then taken by a simple hook until the cable block is moved to the other side of the chair, allowing him to move on down the cable. A self-cleating harness block allows the rescuer to adjust his harness to the height of the chair and when the block is moved by a waiting colleague the rescuer can lower himself enough to sw : ng past the tower.

According to Mr Painter, the tricky part is climbing the tower and along the tower pulleys to fix the cable block but the manoeuvre has been practised in 60 knot winds.

Alex Harvey Industries, the developers of the Turoa field (on the southern slopes of Ruapehu), has already ordered a set of the equipment, costing about $760. ® *

Some Japanese schoolchildren could be spending their mid-term break a little differently than usual next August. Graham Mangin, a member of the organising committee for the recent F.I.S. series, says that the Japanese coach told him he was interested in bringing a team of schoolchildren to New Zealand in a year’s time to train. The timing would coincide with the August school holidays here. £ & sS

Hamish Webb and Geoff Tocker, the mobile Snowline Sport servicemen, have already worked at five South Island ski-fields this season. Their service — which includes on-the-spot binding adjustment and the replacement of baskets and boot clips — has been available at Ohau, Tekapo, Mount Hutt, Cheeseman, and North Canterbury at one time or another. Tocker says the service has been popular and that they were particularly busy during a “demo day” at Mount Hutt last week-end. M

Warning notices may yet be placed on plastic mini skis being sold in New Zealand because the Accident Compensation Commission regards them as a possible safety hazard.

The skis, designed in Sweden and made in Japan, are meant for use by small children but the commission is worried that they could be misused.

Older children learning to ski should be equipped with proper equipment, says the commission’s director of safety (Mr lan Campbell). “Mini skis are designed solely for use by young children on flat areas: they are certainly not intended for use on steep slopes or in otherwise difficult conditions,” he says. Staff of the commission’s safety division, skiing groups, mountain safety organisations, and the Standards Association met recently. They decided to discuss with manufac*

turers and retailers the placing of warning notices on the skis. They also decided that there should be an extensive public education programme on the correct use of the plastic skis. Sji' ss» Oyez. Oyez. Oyez. This may become a familiar sound in Methven over the next nine days as the town holds its first winter carnival. An appropriately dressed town crier will walk through the decorated streets, ringing his bell and heralding each day’s events. The festivities will include hangis, tug-o-wars, novelty ski races, discos, pie-eating competition, and ski lectures.

A highlight will be the over-all competition. The prize is a week’s free skiing at Mount Hutt, with daily travel, meals, and accommodation in good, old Methven to boot.

Jean-Francois Leduc, the coach of the French skiing team in New Zealand earlier this month, was a pretty useful sort of racer himself 10 years ago. He was “only” in the French B team but that was no disgrace, with racers such as Guy Parillat, Henri Duvillard Qust starting his career), and, of course, Jean-Claude Killy in the top team ensuring that France was the leading ski-ing nation in the world.

Leduc says it is hard for a country to stay on top unless there is “a very good one” in the team. “If you have a good one then he carries the others behind him.”

France had a really good team even five years ago but has slipped somewhat. Leduc is envious of Sweden’s Ingemar Stenmark. “Stenmark is a great skier; I would like to have one (Stenmark) in my team,” he says. * * J’s

Racing in the streets .»■ Gunther Raedler, a German ski instructor, has found recourse to the rather sparsely covered slopes of Coronet Peak unnecessary in doing his training for cross-country ski-ing this winter. According to the Queenstown newspaper, “Mountain Scene,” Raedler has brought a pair of roller skis to New Zealand and uses them for training in the streets of the town. The German is assistant director of a ski school in Oberjoch, Bavaria. He says that about a fifth of its coaching now involves cross-country ski-ing.