Sans Cutterhead

Twenty thousand feet under the sea?

well . . . maybe just some marine equipment in a drydock.

Oh!  This is Caddell’s Drydock #1, which you saw enter the harbor here just five months ago.

And this is Weeks Marine R. S. Weeks, with an unmistakeable ladder–the part that works while submerged.  Click here to see what’s left exposed when the ladder is submerged and working.

Since this vessel is 32 years older than C. R. McCaskill, featured on this blog last week, it seems natural to compare them.  Visually, design features differ.  This dredge has quite different support structure (I know there must be a technical term (help?) . . . but I’ll try “derrick” to raise and lower the ladder and cutterhead.   Ditto, the spud support structure on the stern differs.  Click here for specifics, but it turns out that R. S. Weeks has a larger hull (268′ x 65′ x 17′  versus 230′ x 62′ x 14′) but cannot operate as deep as McCaskill.   Also, Weeks was built on the Susquehanna in 1980 to serve as an “industrial vessel” for Adco.  Not sure what that means.

Here are some closer-ups of the work.

This foto comes thanks to Allen Baker.

All other fotos by Will Van Dorp.

For a close up experience with the cutterhead, click here.   For a bowsprite rendition, click here.