New guys skip the load chart on mobile cranes, drives me nuts

Worked with a kid last Thursday near the Port of Tampa, he was rigging a 12,000 lb concrete panel with the boom at 75 feet and no chart out. I asked him what his radius was and he just shrugged, said the foreman told him it was fine. We checked the chart together, at that radius the crane was only rated for 9,800 lbs, so he was over by a solid 20%. Had to re-rig the whole pick and bring the boom down, cost us an extra 2 hours on site. Is this a training thing now, or are people just too proud to crack open the manual in front of the crew?

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eva_moore24d ago

Honestly I used to be one of those guys who thought charts were for rookies or engineers, like you just feel it out after a few years. But after seeing a buddy drop a load last summer because he "knew" the crane could handle it, I completely flipped. That 20% over is no joke, the margin on these machines is so thin and the ground conditions can change everything. Now I pull the chart out every single pick no matter who's watching, it takes two minutes and saves you from a world of paperwork or worse.