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Remember when we used to just eyeball the spoil line distance?
Honestly, I got lazy on a big channel job down in Mobile Bay about five years back. The old cutterhead dredge I was running had a worn out flow meter, and instead of getting it fixed right away, I just guessed based on the pump sound and how the spoil looked coming out. Ngl, I figured my experience would cover it. Ended up over-pumping by almost 300 feet past the marked area. The environmental fine was bad enough, but the real cost was the two extra days we had to spend repositioning the entire floating line and re-dredging the section we messed up. That mistake cost the company close to $15,000 in lost time and penalties. It was a dumb, expensive lesson that you can't skip the basics. Anyone else have a story about a small gear issue that turned into a big problem?
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martinez.anna6mo ago
Forget worn out flow meters, check your GPS drift. Watched a whole survey grid get shifted because the base station receiver had a loose antenna connection nobody caught. We dredged a perfect trench, just 20 feet west of where it was supposed to be.
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gavin_kim35mo ago
Loose antenna cables are a nightmare, but I've seen base station firmware bugs do the same thing where it drifts a few feet over hours and nobody notices till the check survey. Double check your NTRIP connection logs next time too.
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