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Spent three days in zero viz on a salvage job trying to find a specific bolt pattern on a sunken barge hull.
Finally got it by feel after mapping the whole thing with my hands and a piece of chalk, which was way better than the sonar unit that kept glitching in the silt.
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ray3561d ago
That bit about the chalk being "way better than the sonar" is interesting. I get why you'd feel that way after it glitched, but I'd push back a little. The chalk was the right tool for that specific, close-up job. The sonar is for getting the big picture first, so you're not just feeling around in the dark for three days. They work together. The tech gives you the map, and the chalk marks the spot.
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kelly.charlie1d ago
My uncle was a surveyor back in the 80s and his crew still used chalk lines and marking paint for final plots, even with the new electronic gear. It reminds me of what ray356 said about tools working together. They'd get the computer printout, but you still needed that bright orange X on the ground so the backhoe guy didn't dig in the wrong spot. Sometimes the simple mark is the only thing everyone actually trusts when it's time to do the work.
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Wait, three days just feeling around in zero visibility? That sounds like a special kind of underwater nightmare. How do you even keep your head straight down there that long without a reference point? I guess the chalk makes sense, but man, that’s some serious old-school dedication when the fancy gear quits.
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