That time a sandbar tried to eat my cutterhead near New Orleans

I was running a 12-inch cutter suction in the Mississippi River last spring and hit a buried sandbar that nobody flagged on the survey. It stalled the cutterhead dead and about wrapped 40 feet of cable around it before I could kill the pump. How do you guys spot hidden bars when the water's too muddy for a visual check?

3 comments

3 Comments

kellyallen10d ago

Lead line every time, no shortcuts in that mud.

matthewking10d ago

Man, that's a rough one. Sandbars in the Mississippi are just nasty, they love to hide. Your only real bet on muddy water is to run a tight zigzag pattern with a lead line or a sounding pole every few feet.

brian_hart9d ago

Sandbar at mile marker 287 south of St. Louis got me good last spring, so I know exactly what you're dealing with. But @matthewking, I gotta push back a little on the zigzag thing. In my experience on that river, a tight zigzag with a lead line just stirs up more mud and makes it even harder to see what's underneath. I find it works better to pick a straight line close to the bank where the current usually digs a deeper channel, then run a sounding pole in a slow, steady sweep instead of poking every couple feet. The mud there settles quick so you can actually feel the bottom change, and you avoid that constant back and forth that just cakes up your gear.