The world of compound rigging is one of custom configurations, incredible imaginations, and hardware infatuations. There have been many a career signed, sealed and delivered because of compound rigging jobs of the most epic proportion: the speed line over the spa, the drift into the driveway, the anchor where there was none. Compound rigging is brush and wood floating through mid-air, seemingly moving too slow or too smooth to be comprehended by the untrained eye, the whirling buzz of bushings and aluminum gliding on polyester. It is a world of a thousand forces meeting, and a thousand energies transferred. Compound rigging is a place for the imagination to solidify itself in a very real and dangerous world.

The summary from chapter 6 of The Art and Science of Practical Rigging (Donzelli, Lilly) reads this way: “Compound rigging techniques illustrate how, once the arborist understands the science, combing techniques becomes an art…Observing a master rigger dismantling such a tree is like watching an artist at work” (110).

I’m not sure if the artist gets their power from their art, or if the art gets the power from the artist. Maybe it is both. But compound rigging can create incredible amounts of power into a rope system or rope systems, which is why experience in how force is created when building rigging systems is vital to the success of compound rigging techniques. The beautiful thing about compound rigging when employed in the correct manner is that the rigging arborist can terminate energy into different rope and hardware configurations, which can be beneficial when sharing that load is critical.

I’ll list some very general concepts from Chapter 6 ‘Compound Rigging Techniques’ (Donzelli, Lilly): Load-transfer line, Static removable false crotch, Spider balancer, Speedline, Floating anchors and Knotless Rigging Systems. And I’m quite certain that these concepts can also be combined-compounded if you will!-into even more diverse applications to move wood and brush safely to desired locations. So there is at least a sense of what actual systems are being referred to as compound rigging.

The limitations will be in hardware selection available to the crew, experience with these different types of hardware applications amongst the crew, and also the work order at hand and the given job site microenvironment (terrain, access, targets, traffic, etc.). Compound rigging systems can certainly be created with minimal gear, or with the weight of a thousand sheaves…

Compound rigging is certainly not limited to the climbing arborist either. Many rigging systems can be accomplished from the ground either building floating anchors or setting up retrievable false crotches from the ground with throw lines. Stellar ground personnel are critical to a successful compound rigging set-up and operation. And these systems at work are certainly a thing a beauty when a team of arborists is dialed into the work at hand and completely in tune with one another.

Of course, compound rigging systems are sometimes extremely labor intensive, but, given the offset value of how incredibly efficient they can be in moving pieces of wood a brush around congested or poorly accessed areas, that time is a great investment.

Bob Ross, the famous painter from the hit television show The Joy of Painting said, “painting should make you happy, if it doesn’t make you happy, then you’re doing the wrong thing.” And so too do I believe that compound rigging should also make you happy. It’s just like painting on a blank canvas. Imagining and setting up rigging points and a rigging scheme with the available tools and potentially limited availability of trees or other suitable anchors requires a patience and mastery rooted in experience. But creating an art-in-motion effect by placing heavy loads in detailed locations with the concepts of friction, mechanical advantage and the conservation of energy is certainly the work best suited to a creative and determined mind.

Just like painting, if compound rigging doesn’t make you happy, you’re probably doing the wrong thing.