The Northland Tree Climbers Association Agathis Lanyard is New Zealand's most popular chainsaw lanyard for arborists.
pAnd there is good reason for this.
One, the Agathis Lanyard is a fantastic New Zealand made product (Aspiring Enterprises), and… two; all the the profits from the sale of the lanyard goes directly to the NTCA Agathis (Trauma) Fund - the NTCA has raised over $4500 to date.
Product designers, Troy Alderton and Joe Cooper, originally planned for the Agathis chainsaw lanyard to be attached via the 'tear-a-way' section on the harness. The boys assumed everyone would understand this concept.
But, as you know, ASSUME spells 'make an ASS of U and ME'!
Consequently, there where a number of rumblings in the market about the lack of tear-a-way-ability (if there is such a word) of the Agathis chainsaw lanyard.
These grumbles were probably fueled by Agathis Lanyard competitors, who were obviously loosing out on sales of their own chainsaw lanyard.
till, you have to listen what the market is saying, so Treetools decided to ask climbers how they attached the lanyard to their harness.
The answers were quite revealing.
While most understood they should attach their chainsaw to the tear-a-way section of the harness, that option was not always convenient. The central and side D-rings, often presented a better alternative, even for the most safety conscious of climbers.
That's all well and good but these attachment points would not release under serious load - say in an event of a saw getting stuck in a cut section of timber, hurtling ground-ward, dragging the climber with it.
Armed with the above information Treetools, with support from the NTCA, set about to find a solution.
We tested various options but is appears the addition of three stainless steel key rings would solve the problem - simple and honest!
You will note a high level of hilarity in the production of the video below, taken during the last test. That's because most of our earlier attempts simply did not work (as planned).
Yes, we understand the importance of hi-viz, safety glasses, steel toe cap boots, helmets and a taped off area… but this was fun!
