The Good Rigging Control System, or GRCS, gives you the mechanical advantage you need to safely raise and lower anything from tree branches to transformers  

The Story

In 1997 we had a contract to remove a dead silver maple tree growing over a house with a tile roof.  The job site made crane access impossible, but trees adjacent to the silver maple offered rigging points for moving pieces of the silver maple away from the roof.  The only thing needed was a way to hoist the limbs gently up and away from the tile roof.  We were running just a two man show at the time so we needed to empower the ground man.  This job gave me the impetus to act on an idea I had about using a yacht winch for tree rigging.  I certainly wasn't the first to do this, other arborists like Glenn Riggs in Philadelphia had worked with winches, but in the pre-internet days arborists often worked in their own small orbits and information wasn't shared as it is today.  

I acquired a Harken model 44 self tailing winch and bolted it to a thick aluminum plate with the idea that the aluminum plate could slide into a mounting bracket which would strap to a tree.  The mount was cobbled together from steel plate and angles that we had lying around the shop.

We did the silver maple removal and realized that having real mechanical advantage available on any tree we were working on was something good.

As we gained experience rigging with the winch, it became apparent that fairleads on the mount to prevent turns of the rope from crossing over on the drum were necessary. Each time we did a job using the winch we found new ways to use it.  Before long we were using it on every job.