Overheard a guy at the fuel dock saying he never checks his cutter head bolts between jobs

I was waiting to fill up in Mobile last week and this operator on the next barge was bragging about running his dredge for three straight jobs without a single bolt check... said it was a waste of good daylight. All I could think about was that time a loose bolt sheared off on us in the middle of the Pascagoula channel. We lost half a day just getting the head back up and fixed. How do you even get that comfortable with skipping basic checks? What's the longest you'll run without giving everything a once-over?

2 comments

2 Comments

christopher_ross4d ago

Heard a similar story that ended with a cracked gearbox.

jason3284d ago

My buddy's old Ford pickup had a gearbox that sounded like a bag of rocks for a full year before it finally let go. We found three teeth just sitting in the bottom of the case when we pulled it apart. That noise is something you don't forget. It's a miracle it held together on the highway as long as it did.