Blew a hydraulic hose on the cutterhead yesterday

I was about 4 hours into a dredge job near Mobile Bay and suddenly saw oil spraying everywhere. The 1 inch hose on the cutterhead just let go, no warning at all. Had to shut everything down and spend 2 hours fishing the broken piece out of the mud. Cost me like $300 for a replacement hose and lost half a day's work. Does anyone carry spare hoses onboard or just hope for the best?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_adam14d ago

Man, I dunno, people act like every blown hose is the end of the world. I've had hoses pop on me plenty of times and yeah it's a pain but $300 and half a day? That's almost a Tuesday where I'm from. I usually just keep a couple spare fittings and a roll of tape in the toolbox, not a whole spare hose for every possible failure point. Seems like overkill to carry spares for everything when you can usually get a replacement delivered or picked up within a few hours around most working ports. Unless you're way out in the middle of nowhere, it's not like you're stranded for days.

ryan_gibson8414d ago

Wait hold on @the_adam, you keep a roll of tape for a blown 1 inch hydraulic hose on a cutterhead? That hose has got like 3000 PSI running through it. Tape is not going to do a thing for that kind of pressure. I had one blow on me near Mobile Bay too and it was a solid 2 hours of digging muddy hose chunks out of the water before I could even think about fixing it. Carrying spare hoses for every single size and length would take up half my deck space. But a roll of tape as a backup plan for a high pressure system like that sounds like you are just asking for another blowout later that same day.