Picked up a tip from an old timer at the fuel dock last week

I was fueling up near Baton Rouge and this guy, must have been 70 years old, was talking about how he runs his cutterhead at 75% power during a full moon. Said the sediment compacts differently with the tidal pull, less recirculation. Tried it on my last shift in the Mississippi River and damn if my debris intake didn't drop by almost 20%. Anybody else heard tricks like that about lunar cycles?

3 comments

3 Comments

amyh1213d ago

Swapped to running at 70% during the last full moon on the Arkansas River and saw the same thing, less fines coming back through the cutterhead. Made sure to slow down my swing speed too, like one degree every three seconds, and it kept the sediment from lifting back up. The old timers say the moon pulls the heavier sand down tighter, so the lighter stuff stays on top and gets sucked in cleaner.

murray.robert13d ago

The moon pulling heavier sand down tighter isn't really how physics works. Tides are driven by gravitational pull on water bodies, not by sorting sand grains by weight on a riverbed. Slowing swing speed and running at 70% probably helped because it gave the system more time to settle and cut cleaner, not because of lunar sediment magic.

colescott13d ago

Man that's wild, I've heard similar things about how lunar cycles affect water levels in all kinds of systems, like how my buddy swears by planting tomatoes only during a waning moon because the groundwater pulls different.