Tuesday, May 15, 2012

2012 Hanneford Circus #3

Posted by Buckles at 5/15/2012 06:04:00 AM

3 comments:

Henry said...

I think Gunther had the only Tiger ever to walk a single wire. I build a special rigging for that. The cable went thru a pipe that had rope wrapped around it. Like that the diameter of the wire increased to about 2" inch and made it possible for the tiger to walk and balance. Because it had to be very tight it was pulled with a chain ratchet and one time the rigging had a bit to much tension and the floor plate came out while the tiger was walking. Nobody got hurt but the tiger never went back up on the wire again. One year of work gone for two extra pulls on the ratchet.

15 May, 2012 07:31
Chic Silber said...

When was that Henry & are there

any photos of the tiger crossing

15 May, 2012 08:44
Anonymous said...

Even though he isn't named here, this rigging is this guy's business, but from my experience with Mabel Stark's, it's unnecessarily high. Her twin 3/4" cables were 20' long, spaced 12" apart, and stood at 6'. During a matinee one day, with her walker Tiba at mid-point, to our horror, the rigging wrenched and broke apart. Tiba fell awkwardly as the cables and poles crashed down around him. Trainers know when an animal falls off any prop, for any reason, the impulse is to dive at whoever put him there. Mabel was to one side, and the collapse missed her, but she was terrified that Tiba was hurt. Uncle Ben and I started in, but Tiba shook it off like a trouper and clambered back to his seat. A sudden fall from the height seen here would have assured injury. The hooks under the platform, like these in the photo, had crystallized and snapped. Years later, on Bill Strong's "24-Hour Man" blog, I was grateful to see him emphasize inspecting and replacing all such equipment in 5 simple words: "Rigging has a life span." Mabel's wire-walk was re-built by Benny Bennett. With the new rigging up, Tiba dismounted his seat on Mabel's cue, bounded up to the platform, and crossed over and back without hesitation.

16 May, 2012 04:22

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