Significant areas of trees downed by Cyclone Gabrielle litter the roadside into Grimmer Contracting’s Whangarei hauler pad, and it is still shrouded in mist and mystery as the Iron Test team drives down and edges past the hauler towards the container for induction.
The advantage of having a forwarder on site is immediately obvious as all the blown down trees on the access road have already been processed at stump and forwarded to the skid for loading out.
We can just make out the swing yarder mast of the Madill 124 through the mist and hear the Detroit growling as it pulls another drag of cyclone windthrow wood up the slope. This was the first Madill 124 that Porter Equipment had brought in as Madill dealer, and it has done over 10,000 reliable hours so far. Jordan and Mark Grimmer went over to Canada to check that out before they bought it. On the tailhold is a fairly new Sumitomo SH300 with a rock bucket on it.
There is a Cat excavator filling the role of mobile hauler anchor, two Hitachi Zaxis 250 grapple machines and a Hitachi 400/Waratah processor with colour marking. There is quite a lot going on in this crew.
The log stacks are hanging out over the bird’s nest and a Volvo moxy type truck converted to a stems unit is two-staging from these stacks, down the well-formed gravel forestry road and doubling back to a roomier skid on the nearby flat where one of the Hitachi’s with a staunch looking Duxson grapple is swiftly unloading.
Also anchoring the yarder on that top skid is a Cat D6 R with a winch and compact fairlead. Crew boss, Mark Grimmer, is down the slope on an EMS Tractionline tethered John Deere 909MH/Duxson FX142 directional felling head doing windthrow salvage.
Further back on other skids there are two forwarders parked up in reserve, an older Tigercat and the new Komatsu 895.2 SpeedShift forwarder we are here to Iron Test.
No skidder?
“We don’t like them,”says Mark. “Having had various makes and models of skidder, both 4 and 6 wheel we’ve found there is too much clay in Northland and when it gets wet, which is a lot lately, we find the forwarders more consistent year-round and more economic to run than skidders. Paired with predominantly processing in the cutover, we have found this to also have many environmental benefits especially in winter.”
These guys really like trucking and forwarding logs.
Cyclone Gabrielle carnage
After Cyclone Gabrielle hit this block, the landing was unreachable due to windthrow. In fact, on the way in to the crew, the Iron Test team saw the remains of a Kahikatea tree that had blocked the public road before the crew could even get into the block. The Grimmer crew had to bring a quad and trailer loaded with chainsaws and fuel to get a basic, narrow-access track 4 kilometres into the machines and then move out and process the windthrow on the access road, while the new Komatsu 895.2 Speed Shift collected the...
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