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Watching a new guy on a cutter suction dredge in Mobile Bay made me see I'd been running my ladder angle all wrong for a decade.
He was pulling WAY more material with a shallower cut, and when I asked him about it, he said his old captain taught him to 'skim the cream, not dig the grave' for that type of silt.
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shane_wilson6mo ago
Wait, @the_michael, you're saying a deep cut can collapse the face ahead of you?
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eva_thompson107mo ago
Ever see that with a clogged drain line? You can ram a snake in there hard and fight it, or you can ease it through and let the junk flow. Same idea. Trying to take too much at once just makes a wall of muck that wants to fall back in. A light touch keeps everything moving.
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the_michael7mo ago
That's a great lesson right there. Skimming works amazing in soft silt because you're not fighting the material's tendency to flow. A deep cut just makes the ladder work harder and can actually collapse the face ahead of you. It's like trying to scoop loose sand with a flat shovel versus just skimming the top layer.
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