Shoutout to the old timer who saved my butt on the Mississippi River last month

I was running a cutterhead dredge near Baton Rouge and kept getting my suction line clogged with roots and debris every 45 minutes. An old operator named Hank came by and told me to bump the swing speed down to 40% and run the cutter at half RPM when I hit those patches. I tried it and went a full 6 hour shift without a single clog. Has anyone else gotten game changing advice from a random guy on the bank?

3 comments

3 Comments

reese12426d ago

Is it really that serious though, or is Hank just making a simple adjustment sound like magic?

rowanharris1mo ago

Yeah I totally get this. There's nothing like someone who's been doing this job for 30 plus years just walking up and dropping real wisdom on you. Hank sounds like the kind of guy who has seen EVERYTHING go wrong and knows exactly how to fix it without breaking a sweat. It's that simple swap in technique that a lot of younger guys would never figure out on their own because we're all too busy trying to power through problems. I've had old timers save me from similar headaches with stuff like adjusting pump speed or clearing a line with just a bucket trick. That kind of advice is GOLD and it's nice to see it getting passed around like that instead of dying off with the next retirement.

morgan8981mo ago

Gotta say, it's swing speed, not bump speed - small thing but guys get confused with that term all the time. Hank knew his stuff though, that's a solid fix for sure.