Showerthought: I thought the 'crane whisperer' on our site was just making stuff up

We had this old hand, Frank, who swore he could tell a cable was about to go by the sound it made in the sheave. I wrote it off as a tall tale for years. Then, last Tuesday in Chicago, I heard a faint, high-pitched whine I'd never noticed before on a 300-ton lift. I radioed down to stop, we inspected it, and found a single broken wire strand starting to poke out. Frank just nodded and said, 'Told you it sings when it's hurt.' Anyone else have a weird trick like that they didn't believe until it saved their bacon?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_riley5d ago

Yeah, that's the kind of thing you can't learn from a book. My uncle was the same with old truck engines, swore he could smell when a head gasket was on its way out before any gauge moved. I laughed at him until the day he caught mine just by walking past the hood. Makes you wonder how much of that old school knowledge we've lost because it sounds like magic.

blair_allen5d ago

Ever feel like a total clown for doubting that stuff? I used to roll my eyes at my dad's "feel" for when a bearing was going, until his hunch kept my old bike from locking up at 40. That gut feeling is its own kind of tool.