Shoutout to the crew that finally got the swing ladder right on the old Erie dredge

I've seen three different teams this year set the ladder angle too steep on similar models, which just chews up the cutter head bearings in a week. We spent a full day with the manual and a clinometer, got it to 32 degrees, and the vibration dropped by half. How do you guys usually check your setup before a long run?

3 comments

3 Comments

spencer3772mo ago

Buddy of mine works on a Great Lakes tug. His whole crew skipped the manual, just eyeballed it based on an older barge. Ran that dredge for two months shaking itself apart. They finally brought in a surveyor with a digital inclinometer. Thing was off by almost five degrees. Cost them a fortune in downtime and parts. Now they do a proper check with tools before the season starts, every time.

miles_roberts2223d ago

Five degrees sounds minor but on a dredge that's like a whole different machine. My cousin's a marine engineer and he told me a two degree tilt on a big dredge can mess up the hydraulic pressure by like 15 percent. They were probably lucky it didn't crack the main frame or blow a seal. The scary part is they ran it that long thinking it was fine, just because it looked close enough. Modern tools are cheap compared to what that kind of blind trust costs.

faith7412mo ago

My uncle did that with his boat trailer once.