No official safety checks of ski-tow equipment

Press, 28 August 1980, Page 1

No official safety checks of ski-tow equipment

Ski-tows have no official safety checks made on them by any Government department or local body, unlike lifts, cable-cars, and carnival rides.

This anomaly has been brought into focus by an accident at the Porter Heights ski-field last weekend, in which three Christchurch youths suffered serious injuries when the “bull-wheel” on a T-bar ski-tow collapsed. Ski-tow equipment is the responsibility of the indivdual ski-field companies. It is in their interests to ensure the equipment is in top condition, because most ski-fields’ reputations depend on safe, smooth running.

Chairlifts, however, because . they lift people off the ground, come under the control of the Boilers, Lifts, and Cranes Act administered by the Ministry of Transport’s Marine Division. They are licensed by the department, and closely inspected every six months to ensure that they comply with the standards.

Any repairs must be checked before equipment is used.

Three youths were taken to hospital, and other skiers were • injured, at Porter Heights on Sunday when the T-bar’s bullwheel collapsed, causing the tow- cable to ; whiplash, and the wheel to break free and roll down the slope. (The bull-wheel is the big metal “cartwheel” round which the tensioned cable runs at each end of the tow). At Porter Heights on

August 19, before the accident, an artificial avalanche damaged the bullwheel.

The ski-field manager, Mr Brian Lewis, said that the snow caused excessive strain on the tow cable, and knocked out several towers. The nine-tonne counterweight at the end of the tension sheet was “bounced up and down” and this exerted undue strain on the bull-wheel.

The wheel was on a weekly maintenance schedule under which staff had to lean through the spokes to grease the wheel, make a visual check, and check its alignment, he said.

The avalanche had damaged the spokes where they joined the hub of the wheel. It was taken to an engineering firm for a quick welding job, so that it could be reinstalled with the least delay to skiers. The wheel had 13 spokes, and most of these needed repairing, said a spokesman for the. firm (Mr G. Teague). On Sunday morning, the accident occurred when the bull-wheel again collapsed, this time at a different point — where the spokes joined the hub. Mr Teague said that the cause was metal fatigue.

The bull-wheel would be replaced by a new, strengthened wheel, said the chairman of the Porter Heights Company (Mr J. J. Allison) yesterday. The company .would also inves-

tigate installing a safety device that would prevent a damaged bull-wheel from breaking free, he said. “It should possibly have gone back to the manufacturers for repair because of its age, after the first breakage, but it was very hard to tell if it was weakened,” he said.

“At the time we were congratulated for getting it repaired in a short time, but we have since learned that this was not the best thing to do,” Mr Allison said. “We will know next' time, and will be more careful.” Asked whether he thought ski-tows should come under Marine Division inspection, Mr Allison said that the safety of equipment was the individual company’s responsibility.

“We are a private concern, and it is in our own interests to have safe, secure gear,” he said. The wheel, a Pomagalski, is about nine years old; it was imported from France by a Christchurch engineering company, C. W. F. Hamilton and Lunns.

The company’s Works manager, Mr A. C. Dick, said that the new wheel would use only the old guard and axle. It was a later and heavier design than the original bullwheel, with some modifications. -

“We hope to have the new wheel completed about Sunday,” he said.