Had a 30 minute chat with an old timer that changed my whole dredging approach

I spent 5 years running the cutterhead too slow because I thought slower meant less wear on the parts. Then last month at the Port of Savannah a retired operator named Bill watched me for 20 minutes and said 'son you're letting the mud settle on you.' He showed me how bumping the RPMs up to about 180 kept everything flowing way smoother. Has anyone else had a similar moment where you realized you were fighting the equipment instead of working with it?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_alice5d ago

Wait, hold on. You ran that cutterhead for 5 years wrong because some guy finally just told you the right move? That's insane, a lot of people would never even get that kind of honest feedback.

jenny_lane125d agoMost Upvoted

Honest feedback" is the key thing people never get. Most folks would rather let you keep doing it wrong than have that awkward conversation. That guy probably saved them thousands in replacement parts and downtime over five years. Sometimes you just need one person who actually cares enough to tell you.

fiona_hunt715d ago

So how do you even get to that point where someone finally tells you? Five years is a long time to have somebody watch you do something the hard way without saying a peep. Was it a pride thing on the guys part, or did they just assume you knew what you were doing? Makes me wonder how many other small mistakes are out there that nobody bothers to correct until something breaks.