DSC Dredge Hosts Annual Dredge Operators Training Course

Reserve, La.-based DSC Dredge held its annual dredge operators training course February 5 at the Omni Royal Orleans in New Orleans’ historic French Quarter. Known as the “Dreducation Class,” the one-day event is designed to educate and equip newcomers to the dredging industry on how to be more productive and operate more efficiently.

Charles Johnson, DSC Dredge’s director of sales, led the event, which is designed to be industry-specific rather than brand-specific. The Dreducation Class covered topics ranging from the operation of centrifugal pumps and how to read gauges and pump curves to dredge pump efficiency; types of excavators; pipeline sizes, velocity, friction and production; booster pumping; water and slurry; project planning; and dredging techniques.

“The importance of the class is to afford dredge operators a better understanding of the basics of how a cutter suction dredge is designed and functions,” Johnson said, “such as the excavation system, the transport system, slurry characteristics, pipeline velocity versus turbulence, how to read a pump curve and factors that affect the overall dredging efficiency.”

Johnson said this year’s class drew 26 attendees. This is the 16th year DSC Dredge has conducted the Dreducation Class and the 12th year the training course has been held at the Omni Royal Orleans.

New to the agenda this year was an introduction to DSC Dredge’s new cutter suction dredge design, called the “Sharkuda.” The new class of dredge is a “wide format swinging ladder dredge” and features a “spud glider system” that allows the unit to move while continuing to dredge.

“The Sharkuda makes a cut approximately 7 percent wider than a conventional dredge of the same class,” Johnson said. “Coupled with its patented automated glider spud carriages, the design results in an increase in dredge efficiency, over a conventional dredge of the same class, of over 20 percent.”

DSC Dredge offers the Dreducation Class annually in New Orleans between mid-February and mid-June. Plans are already underway for the 2021 installment. The company will showcase its Sharkuda dredge design at the upcoming CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2020, an international construction trade show set for Las Vegas March 10–14.

DSC Dredge also offers its dredge operators training course on location for both new DSC dredge purchasers and companies seeking further training, regardless of the dredge manufacturer. More information is available on dsc-dredg.com.