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Stuck for three days on a clogged cutterhead because we misread the sediment logs
Honestly, we were dredging a channel near Mobile and hit a layer of super compacted clay mixed with old timber. The logs said it was just silt. The cutterhead jammed solid. We tried flushing, reversing, even a small charge to shake it loose. Ngl, it took us 72 hours of downtime to finally get a diver down to cut the timber out by hand. Some guys say you should always send a camera down first, others say that's a waste of time on a routine job. What's your rule for checking unknown bottom material before you start cutting?
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piperb966mo ago
A small charge... that's wild. Can't believe you guys went straight to explosives before a diver.
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amyr576mo ago
Man, a foreman told me once that bad logs cost more than camera time every single time. He had a rule to always drop a camera if the sample looked even a little off. Saved his crew a huge headache more than once.
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