That job on the Mississippi back in 2015 changed how I run my cutterhead

We were dredging near Baton Rouge and hit a buried cable that locked up our ladder for 6 hours. Ever since then I run a hydrographic survey before any project, no matter how small the job looks.

3 comments

3 Comments

stella_murray23d ago

Buried cables are the gift that keep on giving, huh? My last close call was back in 2017, we caught a rock that was supposedly "surveyed clear" and it bent our pump shaft like a pretzel. Now I'm the guy standing on the bank squinting at the water like I'm searching for Atlantis before we even push off. It's embarrassing but hey, six hours stuck on the ladder will do that to a person. I keep a little notebook of all my stupid mistakes so I can flip through it and feel humble before every job. Works better than coffee.

claire_wells8717d ago

The 2014 job on the Missouri River was the one that got me. We had a supposedly "perfect" survey, then hit a buried anchor chain that tore our cutterhead to pieces. Three days, no pay, and a whole lot of cold coffee. I started taking my own GPS photos from the bank before every job, just to compare them to the survey. It's not fancy, but it catches things like that sketchy rock pile or a stray cable that the official guys missed. Keeps me from staring at the water like a lost puppy.

leelewis23d ago

You ever have one of those moments where you just gotta admit you were wrong? @stella_murray I used to roll my eyes at guys who did all that pre-job surveying. Thought it was a waste of time and money. Then we hit that same kind of buried mess in 2015 and it felt like watching my paycheck dissolve in the mud for six hours. Now I'm the one squinting at the water too. It's humbling but it sure beats standing around waiting for the ladder to unstick.