Last week my cutterhead jammed on a buried tire in the Cape Fear River

I was running a 12-inch cutter suction dredge near Wilmington and hit something solid around 15 feet down. Stopped the swing, reversed the ladder, and had to pull the whole thing up to find a semi truck tire wrapped around the shaft. Has anyone else dealt with clearing big debris like that mid-job without losing a whole shift?

3 comments

3 Comments

gibson.morgan1mo ago

Wait hold up, a WHOLE ENGINE BLOCK? That's insane. I thought finding a tire was bad but that's next level junk in the water.

martin.riley1mo ago

Man that sucks, hitting a buried tire in the Cape Fear is brutal. I've had to clear old anchor chains and a whole engine block out of a channel before, and it's always a half day at least. You might try rigging a diver to cut it loose underwater if the current isn't too bad, saves dragging the ladder up and down. That worked for me once with a tangled cable. Hope you got it sorted without too much cursing.

shane_clark1mo ago

Did you ever find anything really weird buried out there, like a car or an old boat?