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That verbal signal from a spotter in Seattle saved my butt
I was setting a 12 ton beam on a tight rooftop job near Pike Place, wind was kicking up real bad. My spotter was a younger guy, new to the crew, and instead of yelling over the radio he just tapped the tagline twice fast. I knew from an old timer years ago that double tap means ease off and wait, so I held my swing for about 20 seconds until the gust passed. After we set it down he told me his dad taught him that trick on a barge crane in Alaska. Have you got any hand signals or line tugs that your crew just knows without saying anything?
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nancyramirez10d agoMost Upvoted
Oh man, that double tap trick is gold. My buddy used to work concrete in Denver and his crew had this thing where the guy on the pump would slap the line twice if they needed to pause for like a second, but a single slap meant keep going. One day they were pouring a slab near a school and some kid ran under the pump chute, his spotter did that double slap so fast my buddy said he nearly jerked the hose back and soaked a teacher instead. But the kid was fine, and the teacher ended up laughing about it. My buddy still swears that little code saved them from a lawsuit. Crews that got those quiet signals are the ones you wanna work with for sure.
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