River Noe, Eyre’s Field, Castleton Rd., Thornhill.
The object of this exercise was to demonstrate to people attending the Cave Rescue Conference at Hucklow and anyone else with links to caving who may be interested in aspects of pumping applications to cave rescue. As some members are aware the TSG has been involved in more than one rescue attempt using these techniques in the past with one notable success. I will recap on this one as it happened some number of years ago. A young boy, diving for glory in Carlswark Cavern, actually free dived around ninety feet to an airspace where upon he was confirmed still alive by divers and stayed there until the sump was pumped and lowered many hours later.
The equipment used for this operation is listed :-
- 30 kW trailer based generator belonging to Nick Williams
- 3 phase multiple outlet box belonging to Nick Williams
- 5 kW Flygt pump belonging to TSG
- 5.8 kW ABS pump belonging to PDMHS
- 2 reels of 2.5 inch canvas water bagging belonging to TSG
- 2 reels of HD 3 phase cable belonging to TSG
The gear was set out with the Flygt pump totally submerged in the centre of the river, the ABS close by with 60% water cover, the generator on hard standing 15 feet above the river and the water bagging going up the slope past the generator into the adjacent field and back down into the river. At switch on both pumps did exactly what it said on the tin and the resulting water flow was quite impressive. To settle our minds phases were changed round in the electrical feeds to the pumps to see if we could get more efficiency but we had it right first time round.
In conclusion everything worked as planned except the ABS pump which had a noticeable whine. This has been put down to faulty bearings and will have to be looked at. The post mortem was held at the Red Lion Inn in Litton afterwards.
Work Team
TSG - Nick Williams and Zak, Graham Wolstencroft(Grum) and Chris, Ed Mason
SUSS - Goeff Wade, Tim Webber and Glen Sankey
E. Mason 14-5-09
