Hoist

What is a hoist?

A hoist (Dutch: takel; with multiple sheaves a block and tackle) is a lifting device that spreads a load over several chain or cable parts, so one person can raise something they can’t lift. The more parts hang from the load, the less force each part needs. In a play space a hoist hangs above the suspension point of a suspension.

Where the word takel comes from

From the ship, not the workshop. The Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal carries one entry TAKEL, and it means “everything that serves to fit out a sailing ship for the voyage”. The whole rig, not the lifting block. You still hear it in onttakelen, aftakelen and toetakelen, which the WNT names in the same breath. The etymological dictionaries date the oldest attestation to 1376–1400, with “ship’s rigging” and “lifting device” side by side, and derive the word from the Middle Dutch taken, “to take, to grip”.

How a hoist works

By spreading the weight over more load-bearing parts, and by paying for that with distance. A single fixed pulley doesn’t do that yet: an ordinary pulley has a mechanical advantage of 1 and only changes the direction of the force, not its size. Only once the load hangs from several parts does the force get smaller, and the number of parts pulling up is the factor: four parts, a quarter of the force.

What gets no smaller is the work. That same physics book says it flatly: a machine can’t deliver more work than the energy that goes into it. A quarter of the force therefore means four meters of chain through your hands per meter of height. And the beam notices nothing of that gain: a sheave that only reverses the direction passes both the load and your pull on to the point above it. That follows straight from that first sentence.

Why a hoist hangs in play spaces

Because one person can raise someone with it without a second pair of hands. In my overview of play spaces you can rent thirteen rooms name a hoist, mostly electric and almost always in the same breath as a sling or a St Andrew’s cross. That’s also why it’s overrated: pressing a button doesn’t feel like lifting.

What a hoist isn’t built for

For people. Lifting devices are built to working coefficients meant for cargo: Annex I to the European Machinery Directive holds 5 as a rule of thumb for cables and 4 for chains. For machines that lift people those same coefficients are explicitly inadequate and must “as a general rule be doubled”, plus at least two independent cables or chains, each with its own anchorage. A hoist from the hardware store is built to the first measure, and that’s on no rating plate anywhere.

Where this fits on my site

I don’t use a hoist. A beam in a house I don’t know is something I can’t judge, so I don’t suspend. What I can do is ropework where your weight stays on the floor; how that goes is on the page about the BDSM date.

Sources

• The Supply of Machinery (Safety) Regulations 2008, Schedule 2. Statutory Instrument 2008/1597, United Kingdom. This is the word-for-word transposition of Annex I to the European Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC; it’s used because EUR-Lex returns no text from there on. Supplies point 4.1.2.4: cables as a rule have a working coefficient of 5 and lifting chains 4; and point 6.1.1: those coefficients are “inadequate for machinery intended for the lifting of persons and must, as a general rule, be doubled”, with the requirement of at least two independent cables or chains, each with its own anchorage.
• College Physics 2e, 9.5 Simple Machines. Paul Peter Urone & Roger Hinrichs, OpenStax, Rice University. University physics textbook under an open license. Supplies the definition of mechanical advantage as output force divided by input force; that an ordinary pulley has a mechanical advantage of 1 and only changes the direction of the force and not its size; that combinations of pulleys multiply the force by roughly the number of cable parts pulling up; and that a machine can’t deliver more work than the energy that goes into it.
• TAKEL. Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal via the Geïntegreerde Taalbank of the Instituut voor de Nederlandse Taal. One entry, one hit. Supplies the meaning “everything that serves to fit out a sailing ship for the voyage”, the note that Kiliaan gives that meaning, and the observation that onttakelen, aftakelen and toetakelen are well explained from that meaning.
• takel. Etymologiebank, the collected Dutch etymological dictionaries. Supplies from the Etymologisch Woordenboek van het Nederlands (Philippa et al., 2003–2009) the derivation from the Middle Dutch taken, “to take, to grip”, with the suffix -el, and from Van Veen & Van der Sijs (1997) the dating 1376–1400 with the meaning “ship’s rigging, lifting device”. The older dictionaries call the origin uncertain; that difference is noted here.

Related terms

A hoist is a tool within suspension, the page that says what happens to a body the moment the floor falls away.

• Suspension. What a hoist is hung for, and why the duration matters more than the height.
• Carabiner. The rated link that goes between the bottom hook and the rope.
• D-ring. The fixed attachment eye such a link goes into.
• Panic snap. The hook you can actually release while it’s under tension, and so never the load-bearing part.
• Rigger. The one who picks the suspension point and with whom the calculation should sit.