The old 8-inch suction line on the 'Mudcat' finally gave out yesterday.

We were pulling sediment in the Port of Tacoma channel, nothing crazy, just a standard maintenance run. Heard a sound like a gunshot and the whole dredge shuddered. Shut it down and found a 3-foot split right along a weld seam that had been patched maybe twenty years ago. Back in the day, we'd have a spare section on the barge and weld it up ourselves in a few hours. Now, with the new safety rules, we had to call it in, wait for a certified marine welder, and the whole job got shut down for 36 hours. Makes you miss the times when you could just fix it and keep moving. Anyone else had a vintage line fail on them recently and had to deal with the new red tape?

3 comments

3 Comments

emma721d ago

Yeah, that paperwork delay is brutal. Seems like the whole system forgets that downtime costs more than just the repair bill.

jones.mason1d ago

Our yard lost a whole shift last quarter because a crane inspection cert got stuck in someone's email. The machine was fine, but the paper said it wasn't. That's a full crew sitting around for eight hours.

noahpark2d ago

Man, my buddy's crew had a 10-inch line on their old clamshell barge blow a gasket last month. Took them two full days just to get the inspection paperwork signed off before they could even touch it.