The day I stopped fighting the wind on the hook

For the first 3 years running a mobile crane, I always tried to muscle the load through gusts. I thought it made me look tough, but last fall on a job near the Baltimore docks, I nearly swung a beam into a parked excavator. Now I wait for the lulls and work with the wind instead of against it. Has anyone else changed how they handle tricky wind conditions?

2 comments

2 Comments

stellac9714d ago

...and the worst part is you almost hit a parked excavator? Man, that's terrifying honestly. I work with smaller rigs but even on a bad day with a breeze I can feel the load wanting to dance around. I can't imagine fighting a beam near the docks like that, especially with expensive equipment just sitting there. You must have felt sick to your stomach when that happened, like pure panic. I bet that one close call changed everything for you overnight, not just a little bit. Good on you for learning from it though, that's the kind of wake-up call that sticks with you forever.

jakef6613d ago

Yeah totally, @stellac97, I had a crane load swing way too close to a fuel tank once and my heart just dropped.