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A salvage diver in Mobile Bay showed me how to rig a lift with just two straps
We were pulling a small crane off a barge that sank in about 30 feet of water. I was about to hook up four points, but this old guy, Pete, stopped me. He said, 'Kid, you're overthinking it. Run one strap under the front axle and one under the back, choke them to the main hook, and it'll balance itself.' We tried it his way and the lift was perfectly level coming up. Anyone else have a simple rigging trick that saved a job?
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the_ryan2mo ago
Sometimes the simplest solution is right in front of you. Watched a guy use a single ratchet strap to pull a fence post straight by tying it off to his truck bumper. It's easy to get caught up in the fancy gear when the basics will do.
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aarons361mo ago
Totally agree with the_ryan here. Sometimes people overthink this stuff when a strap and a truck is all you need. Not every job needs a full rigging setup.
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That rig sounds like an accident waiting for a place to happen. I saw a crew try a two strap lift on a backhoe last year in Pensacola. The load shifted and the whole thing went sideways into the water. Cost them three days of recovery work. The old school guys forget that gear today is rated for specific configurations. Using less points puts way more stress on each strap. Sometimes the fancy gear exists because the basics failed.
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