I have cut a lot of dead euc. It basically doesn’t hinge, just snaps. I suspect green is only marginally better. I might use a lift to do some weight reduction on the back and install a pull line, but I’d rather just fell it…maybe try jacking it though I think the weight distribution is decent. Mostly for the experience and so I don’t have to bang wedges.
The lay would be to the right.
View attachment 121990
Jacking and wedging is a very slow process. When a poorly hinging tree starts to loose hinge fibers to breakage as the tree moves, it's going to go with gravity.
Recently, I had to pull over a slightly backleaning bigleaf maple with decay. The homeowner was trying to "help", even though I'd very easily worked 7 prunes and 2 removals with minor rigging, solo, and had explained to him clearly how people trying to give unsolicited "help" a major reason for F-ups and injuries, and how I don't want people trying to 'read my mind' or 'help' so that I can plan things a handful of steps in advance and execute said plan in a 'boring' way.
I had a simple trucker's hitch 3:1 to pre-tension the maple toward the lay. I had just enough rope to set it up, and get some bend into the tree. Without asking, he started to try to help me set the TH, throwing off my train of thought. Initially, I was going to wedge over this backleaner, but thought better of it, as it leaned toward the house, and had some amount of decay, with the hingewood decay being impossible to really know until analyzing the stump.
As I wedged it to get it to commit, with a bit of tension left in the pull line, it started to go, then drift off the 'gunned' direction, scaring his tree stand; no harm, no foul, but...
Had he not tried to 'help', I would have gone to the truck and gotten the Maasdam Rope Puller, and put more bend in the stem, and more elastic tension into the pull-rope, possibly redirecting the rope back to the stump area, so I could easily adjust as I cut, and then deflected the pull-rope sideways to increase my manual input to give it some speed. Alternatively, I could have hung a midline log and tensioned it with the Rope Puller.
I was solo wrecking a 4.5' dbh co-dominant doug-fir a handful of years back, I hung a midline log (couple hundred pounds) and tensioned with my mini-loader, using a good (low) line-angle to pull over a respectably-sized back-leaning top on the second leader.
Mucho gracias to Gerry for introducing that wonderful technique to me via FOGT. Works a treat!
The winch won't keep up; The pedal on the right will. A midline log will.
Keep it simple. A full gap face is the most trickery to use, and way easy for cutting a big trunk compared to matching kerfs for the face-cut. Aim it with a small saw of the same/ close to the same gauge of bar. A 20" would be way easier to start a pilot-kerf.
Shave the bark off first to inspect the fibers and inclusions. Cut low. BEWARE spiral grain, especially with the full-gap face and getting into the root flare.
Looks like an easy tree to get a base-tied or trunk-choke pull rope in the rear lead.
Any more pictures, especially the intended hinge area?
