Rant: My cutterhead jammed on a rock bar near Plaquemine and it got ugly fast

Ngl I was running about 8 feet deep in the Mississippi back channel near Plaquemine when the whole rig started shaking hard. I throttled back but the cutterhead had already sucked up a chunk of limestone, locked the drum solid. Took me 20 minutes of reverse flushing and working the swing cables to clear it, lost half a shift. Anyone else deal with rock bars that don't show up on the survey?

3 comments

3 Comments

grace_knight1910d ago

Whoa, I gotta say I see it a little different. In my experience surveys are only as good as the last high water and rock bars shift more than people give them credit for.

jana76910d ago

@grace_knight19 So you're saying the surveys don't reflect what's actually happening on the ground, right? What kind of shift have you seen that surprised you the most?

emma969d ago

Wait, 20 minutes of reverse flushing? I honestly thought those drums would free up faster than that. I’ve seen guys talk about a jam clearing in like 5 minutes with the right technique. Was the rock bar just hidden under some soft mud or did you actually chop into a solid ledge? Sounds like the whole section needs a fresh sweep with a different sonar setup maybe.