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?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_adam19d 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_gibson8418d 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.

riley_taylor2d ago

Oh come on, is it really that big of a deal? I mean yeah a 3000 PSI hose blowout is nasty but half the time guys are treating these things like they're defusing a bomb. Tape ain't gonna fix it but neither is sitting around crying about it. If you're out on the water long enough you know every repair is just temporary anyway until you can get back to the yard. Sounds like you're overcomplicating a pretty standard part of the job.