25 years in and I just learned I was rigging my luffings wrong

So I'm out on a job last Tuesday near the Port of Savannah, running a 130 ton crawler. Some young guy fresh out of the union hall asks me why I'm running my line through the fairlead on the wrong side. I laughed at first, told him I been doing this since before he was born. Then he showed me the manual from the cab. I had been doing it backwards for probably 15 years. Never wrecked anything but it was making my boom drift like crazy in high winds. Has anybody else had that moment where you realize you been doing a basic thing wrong your whole career and nobody ever told you?

3 comments

3 Comments

sean_johnson163d ago

The first time I ran a Grove 700 and someone pointed out I had my tagline running through the wrong sheave. Felt like an idiot for about a week but hey, at least you didn't bend anything.

johnflores1d ago

Holy crap wait, you had the tagline through the wrong sheave on a 700? Dude that's not even a little mistake, that's like a career defining brain fart. I've run a Grove 700 before and that specific sheave is pretty obvious if you look at it from the side. How did that even happen? I'm not judging I just can't picture the setup in my head where you'd route it wrong unless it was pitch dark or something. At least you caught it before you picked anything heavy and turned the tagline into a pretzel.

elizabethg183d ago

Felt like an idiot for about a week" - sounds about right. My first crane job I had the whole rigging setup backwards and didn't realize until a guy yelled at me from the ground.