That old timer at the marina made me rethink my whole approach to sand management

I was cleaning out the barge after a 14 hour shift on Lake Erie last Thursday, and this retired guy named Walt comes over, says he ran dredges back in the 70s. He watched me for a minute then goes 'you're fighting the sand instead of letting it flow.' I thought he was full of it at first. But then he showed me how he used to run his cutterhead at a lower RPM and let the material find its own path through the pipe. Tried it the next day on a shallow spot near Cleveland Harbor. Cut my cycle time by about 20 percent and used way less fuel. Made me wonder how many other old tricks I'm ignoring. Any of you guys run into old school operators who dropped knowledge that actually works better than the modern way?

2 comments

2 Comments

park.wyatt6d agoMost Upvoted

Yeah I always figured the new way was better but Walt sounds like he proved that wrong.

jade2266d ago

Oh man, "the new way was better" - I thought the exact same thing for years. I always figured modern was just smarter because it's what everyone does now. Then I had this old guy at the hardware store walk me through doing a drain pipe the old way with real lead and oakum and I was shook. It's been five years and that joint is still solid as a rock, no leaks nothing. Meanwhile I've had to dig up two of my newer PVC joints that just split on me for no reason. Makes me wonder what else we've been wrong about just because it's newer.