Today was the big day for our Siddhidata Kulam team to do something they had never done before. Will it work?

Here we are at the new electrical box wall where the power will be coming in from the main outside lines. The team is taking four giant cables and getting their ends together and tied to the rope that passes down, and then underground for about 300 feet before coming up in the road behind the monastery.

Up and over this scaffolding…

to the spools that hold the cables…

An amazing pulley system was set up. The total weight of the four cables, plus estimated friction, was calculated to require about 2,000 pounds, 1 ton, of pull force to draw them through the conduit. At the beginning, the team though of using the hydraulic power of the tractor auger to wind the rope and pull.

One pulley is attached to nearby tree.

As it turned out, since the ropes passed through pulleys on both ends, twice, the total required force was cut to 1/4 or 1/6, so the team adopted a simpler system, pulling the rope by hand.

Way off in the distance is where the cable will come up.

Sadhaka Nilakantha standing by at the destination.

The rope comes out and up through a pulley and then 300 feet above ground to the starting point.

It’s working!

Here it comes! It is through!

One last happy effort by the team.

And the job is done…

Finished… “Pau hana!” as we say in Hawaiian.