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Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1425269
…and then, suddenly, the mast starts to twist. I'm not talking full, dangerous corkscrew twisting, but the crane, which had been quiet till now, has just picked up a big load and has started shifting sideways, triggering a counter-rotation in the mast— a dull creak and a perceptible torque that I wasn't expecting and am not enjoying. Feigning nonchalance (OK, trembling in body and voice), I look to my guide, Remi Coupal, and say, "Is it supposed to do this?" Remi and his brother, Doug, are co- owners of Coupal Climbing Cranes, the Port Coquitlam–based company their dad, Val, started in 1974. So Remi is beyond casual. He climbed his first crane when he was 11— he started going up in the evenings to help Val with maintenance and repairs—and remembers being "terrified" on that first occasion and frightened a few times since. But not this time. I take it as a kindness that he doesn't laugh at me. Instead, he launches into a colourful description of how wonderfully bendy these cranes can be. They shake and shudder in high winds, and they seem to bow right down, pointing nose to ground, when they're load-testing at the end of their range. And if something goes wrong and the crane drops a heavy load unexpectedly, the recoil can send the whole thing into shivers. H E I G H T E N E D R I S K S What tower cranes don't do, generally, is fall down—at least, not once they're in place. Like the birds from which they take their names, cranes may seem frail and ungainly—teetering on one leg—but the record shows them to be surprisingly robust. "There are literally thousands of cranes operating in North America, and accidents are few and far between," Coupal says. WorkSafeBC reports that, with a steady 265 to 300 tower cranes operating in B.C., there were 48 "incidents" in the decade from 2011 to 2020, but no collapses. And the last death that had been reported among all crane types in the province involved a mobile crane working on a SkyTrain con- struction project site in 2000. The collapse of a tower crane in Kelowna this past July shattered that long, safe record. "It was pretty traumatic for the whole industry," Coupal says, and while he didn't know anyone involved, the loss felt 40 BCBUSINESS NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2021 R E A C H F O R T H E S KY The ancient Greeks experi- mented with precursors to the construction crane as early as 700-650 BC, according to a 2019 University of Notre Dame study "The foremost discovery of the Greeks in building technology is the crane," said assistant archi- tecture professor Alessandro Pierattini, the study's author. "No previous civilizations are known to have used it, and it has remained central to building construction without remarkable changes for nearly 25 centuries– because it was perfect" After steam cranes became popular during the Indus- trial Revolution, British engineer and industrialist William Armstrong invented the first hydraulic crane in 1838 During the 1850s, the world's biggest harbour crane could lift up to 60 tonnes Actually, I'm concentrating on catching my breath. My watch says we've been climbing for 12 minutes (which means climb- ing for six, resting for six), and I am well past warmed up. I'm wearing a fall-protection harness that weighs as much as a midsized dog, and clownish size-12 work boots, which I bor- rowed because nothing in my size-10.5 wardrobe has steel toes. So I am prepared and, at the same time, unprepared.