NIMBLE ’

The Tainui guys said I might struggle to get wood out of this area and up onto Skid 5 but it wasn’t too bad. I thought I had bumped the diff locks on at one stage because I was sledging but it was just because the ruts were so deep and I had a decent load on.

These Douglas fir blocks seem to always have really deep topsoil which is prone to turning to crap in the wet. Not sure why but maybe to do with how the foliage breaks down. I’ve always found them to be really slippery compared to pine.

They certainly didn’t put me in the cream area and really that’s what we are here for in the rain and mud, to test it out in real conditions.

I did have concerns that due to the length of it, this machine would be a bit like a boat to steer but it is very agile and has ample power and manoeuvrability.

The new seat rotator Tigercat has designed gives 220 degrees turning. To visualise, that’s more than all the way to the front, allowing you to exit the lefthand side door, plus you can lock the seat in any position with full controls.

I have had a bit of an issue with seats lately as one broke off the stump while I was operating in it, and hey I’m not a huge unit or anything, so it’s good to see this one has some serious engineering behind it. They have actually used parts off the grapple snubber on the seat rotator so it is rated for extreme capacity which it will see with all the stumps and