INTUITIVE DESIGN
IT IS A LITTLE BIT CONCERNING BEING asked to Iron Test a new multi-million-dollar innovative machine with ropes and winches and steep slopes, so I had to do a bit of selfassessment to see if I had enough experience first. My first forestry job was at 14 years old, post cutting. After that I did a bit of work in various crews running a Madill 071, a Thunderbird TMY, a Log Champ, a BE 60 and the last machine I ran a few days ago was a BE 70. For quite a few years I have been training people to operate haulers, as well as training people in felling trees, windthrow falling, breaking out, setting up haulers for new buyers etc. In fact, I trained the young bloke who runs this Alpine now, but I didn’t train him on this new machine. Yeah, probably would have a chance of pulling it off if luck goes my way.
In between my 14-year-old start and today I went shepherding up in the steep hill country behind Whanganui and more shepherding on stations down the South Island in the summers and did logging and played rugby in winter, followed by shepherding on Waipoua Station next to Mangatu Forest in Gisborne. That was interesting as it coincided with some political changes which saw the close of the Forest Service Camp at Mangatu which gutted the local school and saw things change dramatically for the area.
A bit of production thinning on the sand dunes of Santoft forest with my brother followed, then Pete Dancer brought his American gear over to Lismore Forest 16km North East of Whanganui, so I joined that crew as I was one of the few locals here at the time with logging qualifications. Lismore was planted in 1963 as a Crown Forest of close to 5000 hectares of mostly steep Papa hill country. I have been logging ever since pretty much apart from four or five years as a bush inspector for the Department of Labour. I didn’t really enjoy that job too much, so I went back to running a hauler in Lismore.
I have actually spent most of my life on my feet either breaking out or falling, logmaking or processing on the landing. Apart from haulers I didn’t get in a machine until I bought my own machine in my forties as I was good at falling and breaking out. Back in the day you had to wait for somebody to die before you got in a machine because all the old guys were in machines.
First impressions of this yarder are that it is a flash unit. All the controls are a bit daunting at first, but that is just a matter of getting to know the system. There is an element of intuitive design that has gone into these controls, and seeing all the functions playing out on the screen so you know where you are at there is good. It would be fairly easy to get proficient with this machine and I would rate it as easier to learn to operate than other yarders.
An example of non-intuitive would be when, say, a carriage shows you a red light when the sky clamp is off or on. Intuitively you would think that means Stop, which is not right. There is none of that kind of second-guessing stuff in this Alpine machine. I can see myself being pretty relaxed in there in no time.
It has all the mod cons as far as a comfortable seat, great climate control, excellent communications set up and sound system as well as really good visibility. They have obviously thought about a lot of the problems encountered in older haulers such as slack in your lines, it has automatic tension on the main, so you don’t have to be worrying about that.
The grapple was straightforward to operate, standard size grapple, went around the logs okay and seemed to grip them well.
As for the power? Holy, it’s got power to burn. And you don’t even feel the power it’s so smooth. It also has this cool function where you can go into the machine screen and pre-programme, so for example when Jake moved the tail hold to a new setting and we had a bunch of repeated drags from basically one spot fed by Clint, you can look at all your pressures and set those in place like a rinse and repeat type cycle which is really good. You can custom set it for every line which is a major time saver and stress reliever. It also means less fatigue on the operator as well.
The machine feels stable. Not scarily shaking around like some I have operated. I also thought my trainer was very good too. And he seems very happy in this machine which says a lot. I would seriously rate this machine. If I was going to get back into contracting, I would definitely be wanting to buy one. It has good utility in short to medium drags typical of Whanganui’s forests, good speed and can be moved into some gnarly spots where you wouldn’t even think of moving a lot of other haulers.