Old timer at the dock changed my mind about slow dredging

Had a guy named Jerry who's been running a dredge on the Mississippi for 40 years tell me I was overworking my cutterhead last week. He said I was running it too fast trying to clear material quick, and that I should let the suction do more work at half the RPM. I tried his way on a tough sandbar near Baton Rouge and pulled 30% more material in the same shift. Anyone else ever get advice that went against everything you thought was right?

2 comments

2 Comments

mila3959d ago

Had an old mechanic tell me the same thing about my boat motor back in '09... kept trying to rev it up and he said let the torque do the work at lower RPM. Took me a whole season to finally listen.

martinez.karen9d agoMost Upvoted

Oh, I know exactly what you mean. It takes a while to unlearn that instinct to just rev everything up, doesn't it? That old mechanic really knew his stuff, letting the motor's natural power do the heavy lifting at lower speeds. Glad you finally listened, I bet it made a world of difference.