Pfaff-silberblau winches for festival in Germany

19 August 2010

Print Page

The festival saw 311 yellow helium balloons released over 4,000 sq km to mark to locations of the former coal mineshafts.

Volunteers on site raised the balloons with wire rope winches from Pfaff-silberblau’s GAMMA series.

The aluminum GAMMA wire rope winches have an enclosed chain drive, making them suitable for outdoor work. The tensile load capacity amounts to 500kg (although some versions have a capacity of up to 800kg), ensuring the winches secured the 311 balloons.

The removable crank with a spring-loaded safety brake means that untrained users were able to operate the winches following initial instructions. The winches can be used in any position and are equipped with an additional high-speed model for quickly rolling or unrolling the wire rope when not bearing a load.

The Pfaff-silberblau SW K GAMMA aluminium console-mounted winches were tasked with raising the balloons attached to a wire, to a maximum of 80m, while still considering the safety of those in attendance. To fulfil the task, volunteers had to crank the handle of a wire rope winch anchored to a trailer. In the event of inclement weather, volunteers could reel the ‘yellow works of art’ back in quickly.