On nights this week we were running 5" at 2 am in steady rain, so we slowed the swing on the hydraulic arms, put two taglines on each joint, and had the tong hand calling pinch points — zero near-misses. Do you add a dedicated caller on the catwalk in weather, or trust radio only when handing to the elevators?
In weather we park a dedicated caller at the V-door and make his word a stop-work — one call: “freeze,” and nothing moves until he gives “clear,” with radios staying up for redundancy. Only caveat: don’t let that caller double as a tailer or tong hand, or you lose the eyes you were counting.
At 2 am in rain, we add a catwalk caller but put the handler E-stop in their hand and use a whistle — one blast ‘bite’, two ‘freeze’ — radios stay secondary. Keep one tagline live until elevators are latched and visually verified, then caller gives ‘clear’ and the swing leaves creep. @tomK32 do you rotate that caller every hour for fatigue?
On 5" at 2 am in rain, we do add a catwalk spotter, but make it visual: green LED wand means bite, red means hold — “no green, no go” — and we cap the handler slew around 35% with clamp pressure backed off a touch. Radios stay up to the driller, but we run a hardwired talkback to kill the lag. @micheleR45 whistles got drowned out on us in weather; have you tried a simple wand or a ‘rain mode’ speed limit on the handler?
@OP When we’re handing 5" to the elevators, we paint a thin white stripe on the elevator ears and mark the joint OD at tally, and the catwalk caller has to say “white to white” before the driller eases in — it’s cut our muddled radio calls way down. Since you’re already running two taglines, would you pause at waist height until that call lands to keep the low-side hand out of the bite?
I don’t trust radio-only handing to the elevators at 2 a.m.; we put the handler on a deadman so the catwalk caller has to hold enable, and we slow the arm with a 1‑sec soft start off the hydraulics. Same two taglines, but we snap a nylon stabbing guide on the ears so a slight misline in the wet doesn’t punish fingers. @ellaF34 you running a physical enable or just signals?