Guy on site said swing it like a fishing rod, I actually tried it

Yesterday on a job in Newark, this old rigger told me to feather the swing lever like I'm casting a line, and sure enough it smoothed out my load control on a 30 ton pick. He walked off laughing after he said it, but it made me think about how much of this trade is just finding dumb analogies that work. Anybody else got a weird comparison from a veteran that stuck with you?

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1 Comment

tarajenkins18d ago

Honestly I gotta push back on that one. So many of those old timers make their point with a colorful line but the real math is in the sheave angles and what the load is doing on the hook, not how your wrist feels. Ive seen guys swear by the fishing rod thing and then still swing a load into a trench because they forgot the wind was picking up.