Her are some pics of a boat we had to fly out of the waimak gorge around a month ago.
Two boats were up the gorge on a Friday and one failed to start when they went to come home, After trying to sort it and get it started (failed starter)They did the right thing by leaving it there and boating out in the remaining boat just on dark.
Sat morning they rung me in the hope of us having a starter, I had one but since I wasnt sure if it was the right one, The decision was made for me to fly in and see if starter would fit, and if it did the chopper would return and pick up the owner while I replaced the starter and we would boat it out.
The reason for flying me in was due to the weather closing in and the river due to rise (there was 2"of snow on the ground).
With no 4x4 axcess and it being too dangerious to tow it out the only answer was the chopper, Unfortunatilly the starter was wrong...... so the next step was to call in a heavy lift Squirrel as the std Squirrel is only rated to lift 750kgs. The only one capable of over the 750kgs is based in Hanmer (it will lift 1100kgs) and my guess of the weight was 900kgs as it was full of fuel as well, so within an hour the chopper was on its way to pick us up where we slung the boat and the pilot flew it out and then returned to pick us up. Having spent a fair bit of time around choppers it was a straight forward job to get it out.
The owners had done everything right but had some serious bad luck, but it goes to show how easy things can go wrong.
Hopefully the recovery will be covered by insurance as we were protecting their interest...........
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DSC03575.JPG (30.7 KB, 0 downloads) 14 years old - DSC03580.JPG (65.6 KB, 0 downloads) 14 years old
- DSC03574.JPG (74.6 KB, 0 downloads) 14 years old
- DSC03572.JPG (58.9 KB, 0 downloads) 14 years old
