Stood at the Port of Tacoma last Tuesday and finally got why my old journeyman kept yelling about swing radius
I took my kid to the Port of Tacoma last Tuesday to watch the ship-to-shore cranes unload containers, mostly because he is 6 and thinks they are dinosaurs. Standing there for about 40 minutes, I noticed the operators never rush the swing, they let the load settle before they boom down, every single time. My old journeyman used to yell at me for fighting the swing on a 90 ton pick, and I thought he was just being old and loud. Watching those guys work a 200 foot boom with maybe a foot of clearance, I get it now. It is not about being fast, it is about not adding energy to something that already wants to move. Anybody else have a spot like that where watching other operators flipped a switch for you?