I've watched a few minutes of the live feed of the Chilean miner rescue. First off, I marvel at the expertise and dedication to FIND the area where they're at, then DRILL down to contact them and then DRILL a hole to extract them. Lots of great engineering and ingenuity, I'm sure. Reminds me of that rescue in our country few years ago.
However, I got a chuckle when I saw a closeup of the top of the hole. They used a snatch block to keep the capsule cable away from the wall of the slanted bore hole. It was removable so they would lower the capsule and then install it to guide the cable. The block's hook appeared to be just grabbing on outside wall of the liner with a strap on the hook and a guy was sitting there with one foot on each side of the hook, presumably to keep it from slipping off. Did I see that right?
If so, I can't believe they wouldn't have welded on some bracket for the hook or come up with SOMETHING better than a guy holding it with his feet. Did anybody else see that? Or did I miss something?
I had visions of them getting ready to lower the capsule and everyone looking at each other saying "I thought YOU were going to weld that on".
However, I got a chuckle when I saw a closeup of the top of the hole. They used a snatch block to keep the capsule cable away from the wall of the slanted bore hole. It was removable so they would lower the capsule and then install it to guide the cable. The block's hook appeared to be just grabbing on outside wall of the liner with a strap on the hook and a guy was sitting there with one foot on each side of the hook, presumably to keep it from slipping off. Did I see that right?
If so, I can't believe they wouldn't have welded on some bracket for the hook or come up with SOMETHING better than a guy holding it with his feet. Did anybody else see that? Or did I miss something?
I had visions of them getting ready to lower the capsule and everyone looking at each other saying "I thought YOU were going to weld that on".