Proud of my Spouse

[whitepe]

Harold,
Maybe the underwater logging will get my kid
interested in logging in general.  ;D   A few years
ago there was talk about CAT making an underwater
crawler tractor.  Yep, they built a prototype but it never
made it to market. It was powered by hydraulic motors
with an above water engine connected by umbilical
cord hydraulic hoses. The target market was for harvesting
cultured pearls in an underwater oyster farm on Japan.

[Fla._Deadheader]

What happened to the prototype??? I'd like to play with that sucker a while ;D ;D :D :D

[Furby]

 :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

[whitepe]

Harold,
They probably scavenged parts off of it for sumthin.
Who knows?  
Did anybody see mega machines last night?
They had some guy taking a CAT D6 and running
over what looked like an old camaro or firebird.
It was a real hoot!   When they were done,
the folks at IHOP couldn't have made better pancakes.  :D

[Fla._Deadheader]

Didn't see that, but, DID see the "Swamp Rat", the floating backhoe. BOY, did I get some visions dancing through the old gourd : : ;D :D :D :D

[Tom]

Perry,
You reminded me of an incident in Ft. Pierce along about 1969.  A company had won a contract to "re-nourish" the South Beach.  Tides, currents, storms and the eddies from the Inlet which was lined with jetties had eroded several hundred feet of beach in the past 40 years and the Feds were going to help with the cost to put the sand back.

This company built a crawler tractor that that had a snorkel for the operator and a snorkel for the diesel engine and crawled from the beach to the first reefs which were 3/4 of a mile and better off shore to retrieve the sand.  It had a cutter device on the front and pipes out the back where the sand was pumped all the way to the beach.  It was being used in 20' or better depth.  It really worked.

This was the first time I had ever seen Robalo boats.  The crew had two or three open, center console boats on the beach and when it came time for the crew change on the dredge they would hook the bow of one to a drag-line that pulled it across the beach to the surf with the crew in it.  They cranked it up, disengaged the drag-line cable and went, hell-bent for leather through the surf, splashing and spraying water everywhere.  Sometimes the boat would come back down and actually contact the water.

Changing crews, they flew back into the beach and surfed or jumped the waves and landed in the shallows with such force that they were propelled fully upon the beach.  The drag-line then was hooked back to the bow and the boat was pulled above the high tide mark.

These were 25 foot boats with big outboards on them.  I think the limits then were in the 80 horsepower class but they would really move.   I have always been impressed with Robalo's ever since.

I was working for the newspaper then and took a lot of pictures of this dredge.  Unfortunately I can't find a single copy in my collection.  This must not have been as economical an adventure as was planned because I haven't heard of anyone else doing it since.

[Jeff]

I saw it PEW, thats one of my fav-or-right shows.