Old-school draghead vs. the fancy new variable-speed models

I've been running dredges for about 18 years now, mostly out of the Gulf around Louisiana. The last job I had, the crew swapped out our old fixed-cutter draghead for one of those new variable-speed jobs. In my experience, the old one was way more forgiving. You could just set the pump speed and let the cutter do the digging without overthinking it. That new one gave me fits for the first two weeks. It kept bogging down on me in mixed sand and clay, and I had to keep adjusting the throttle mid-cut. Finally, an old-timer on the barge told me to just lock the speed at 75% and treat it like the old head. Night and day difference after that. Has anyone else found those variable heads just add more steps than they help with?

2 comments

2 Comments

riverknight1mo ago

Is it really that big a deal what the head's called when the old one still got the job done?

lucas_price831mo ago

Hold up, I think you're mixing up variable-speed dragheads with the newer variable-speed pump drives. The draghead itself doesn't have a speed to lock in at 75% on a barge setup that's the pump's job. The old-timer was probably telling you to lock the pump speed not the head. Those fancy heads with the moving teeth and adjustable shrouds are a whole different animal where the speed is set by the ladder winch anyway.