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Had a chat with an old dredge hand in Baton Rouge that got me thinking about suction lines
Was working a job down near the Mississippi last month and took a break at a diner off River Road. Old guy maybe 70 sat down next to me, saw my work shirt, and started talking about dredging back in the 80s. Said they used to run suction lines way longer than what I'd ever try, like 2,000 feet plus, with nothing but a worn out pump and some prayer. He claimed the secret was all in how you bedded the line on the bottom, not the pump size. I've been running the same setup for 3 years and never thought about it that way. Anyone else heard that before or am I just getting old stories?
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mark3611mo ago
Bedding the line on the bottom" does not sound like some magical secret to me.
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milesj701mo ago
My buddy Dave out on the Atchafalaya tried running a 1,800 foot line without bedding it right and lost a whole shift digging it out of mud. @mark361 might call it basic stuff, but Dave swears the old timer's trick about sinking the line into soft bottom instead of floating it saved his pump from cavitating. He's run it that way ever since and says it cut his downtime by half.
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