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Had a wild suction line clog on the Columbia last week
We were pulling gravel near Hood River when the pump pressure spiked and the whole rig started shaking. Turned out a huge chunk of old logging cable got sucked up and wrapped around the cutter head. Had to shut down, dive in with a knife, and cut it free piece by piece. Took about three hours in freezing water, but we got it clear. Anyone know a better way to spot that kind of junk before it gets pulled in?
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charles_baker283d ago
Man, that's brutal. It's crazy how much old junk is just sitting down there, waiting to cause a problem. It reminds me of when I'm working on my old truck and find some weird, rusted part that shouldn't exist. You just can't plan for the random stuff that's already broken and buried. Makes you wonder what else is down there that we never see until it's too late. You think some kind of side-scan sonar would even pick up loose cable like that?
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young.michael3d ago
Honestly, "too late" feels a bit dramatic for some old cable.
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young.michael3d ago
Yeah, that's the kind of nightmare that makes you want to just stay on shore lol. I always wonder if the old timers who left that junk down there ever thought it'd cause this much trouble decades later. Maybe the real trick is just having a second, smaller pump on standby to try and blast that stuff loose before it fully wraps?
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