My rigging cable kinked on a 200-ton tank lift, now I'm second guessing myself

We were setting a 200-ton vessel in Baytown last Thursday and the main rigging cable twisted up about 6 feet off the deck, enough to put a permanent kink in two strands. I spotted it early and called for a pause, but the foreman wanted to keep going since we were already 3 hours behind schedule. Do you guys stop the whole job and swap cable on a fresh lift, or is a kink like that something you'd ever run with if the load calc still checks out?

2 comments

2 Comments

simon_sanchez581mo ago

That "load calc still checks out" line is doing a lot of heavy lifting in your head. A kink like that changes the cable's whole structure, not just the math on paper. Swap it out, even if it costs you the whole day.

brooke4751mo ago

Kinks are like cracks in glass, once they're there the whole thing is compromised. You can't just math your way around a physical weak spot in the metal. That cable might hold today, but it'll fail on the worst possible day, probably with a load on it. It's not about the cost of the new cable, it's about the cost of what happens when that one snaps. Cheap insurance to just replace it and move on. Why risk your gear or worse, your safety, over a few bucks?