Had a cutterhead clog so bad on the Mississippi that I had to shut down for 4 hours to clear it

I was working a 12-inch dredge near Baton Rouge last Tuesday when the suction dropped to near zero, and after digging around I found a mess of old fishing net and anchor line wrapped tight around the impeller, so I spent the whole afternoon with a hook knife and a lot of cussing, anyone else run into weird junk that stops you cold?

2 comments

2 Comments

nancy_davis1mo ago

Oh man, that sounds like a nightmare... fishing net wrapped around the impeller is the worst. Had a similar mess up near St. Louis last summer, a whole tangled mess of polypropylene rope and a couple old tires that must've fallen off a barge or something. Took me and my buddy almost five hours with cutting torches and pullers to get it all free, and we still had to replace the wear ring after that. At least you were on the Mississippi, where the water's deep enough to not suck up a bunch of extra mud while you're stuck clearing junk like that.

wesley831mo ago

That's a tough break, @nancy_davis. I've got to ask though, how deep was that mud when you shut down? I find that on the Mississippi, you can drop into a soft bottom and have the whole dredge settle a few inches while you're not pumping, and then you're fighting to get it floating again on top of clearing junk. Seems like the real trick is knowing when to just cut power and when to try and push through with reduced suction, because a four hour shutdown can cost you half a day's production easy.