Warning: That muddy site near the river almost ate my cutterhead last Tuesday

We were working a narrow channel off the Mississippi, maybe 40 feet wide, and the silt was thicker than anything I've seen in 12 seasons. The suction looked fine on paper, flow rates were normal, but the cutterhead kept binding up every 20 minutes and the hydraulic pressure spikes were screaming past 4,000 psi. I shut down twice to check the intake screen, found nothing, and then on the third bind I heard this grinding that made my stomach drop. The dredge swung hard into the bank and we had to call a tow to pull us off a submerged tree root that had wrapped around the ladder. Cost us 6 hours and a $1,800 repair bill for a cracked suction hose that got kinked during the pull. Has anyone else hit a hidden root ball in soft mud that just doesn't show up on sonar, or did I just get the lucky draw?

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1 Comment

parker_webb6d ago

Man, that sucks... but honestly it kind of reminds me of how the sneakiest problems in life are always the ones that look fine on the surface. You do all the right checks and it still bites you. Hope the next spot treats you better.