I took all the videos and made this video..enjoy!. YouTube - Dredge New York
Interesting! Do you know how they know where to dig, and how do they do an even job of the dredging?
I watched a special before on dredging and they showed that machine. they had guidance system like land based excavators that showed the bucket placement to the bottom.
Why does the winch/derrick have a line to the boom? Some sort of counterweight system to keep the barge level or?
Probably to assist with the lift, weight & suction of the mud etc would be huge. Watch the smoke stack on the "winch boat" Bit of a load
I had some involvement in a marine pipelaying contract a few years ago where a dreger cut the trench. First step was to survey and map the sea bed in the area. This was done using sonar equipment mounted on a boat. A data base of the bed was produced for use on the guidance system for the dredger. The dredger operator had three computer screens in the excavator cab. One showed the elevation of the excavator and had a line across the bottom of screen to show grade. The other two screens showed the plan of the dredger. One of the plans was a schematic showing the current reach and slew angle. The other plan was a colour coded GPS map with the line of the trence included. This colour coded map was the really impressive bit. When an operator dug a certain area the colour of that section would change to show exactly where he had dug and how deep he had gone. He could tell at a glance where he had been and where he still had to go. Obviously plenty of talent was still required but it was an impressive system. They changed operators every four hours due to the concentration required.