Tony Beets has a new master plan on Gold Rush, to get a second dredge up and running at Eureka Creek.
But this crafty Dutchman has a bigger issue, a malfunctioning dredge that is passing gold out in the waste water — and with his costs so high, every grain of gold counts for Beets’ bottom line.
Gold should settle in the first few feet of the sluices. But his son Kevin Beet’s dredge is shown to be the problem, as it’s allowing too much gold to pass out the “ass end”, as Tony says.
At over $2million invested in this one problematic piece of equipment, it appears that Tony is quietly fuming.
In measured tones (for Tony), he says to Kevin: “Let’s just spend more time on the dredge to make sure that it’s more efficient because this is where I make my money and this is where I lose some money, so maybe it wouldn’t hurt the pocketbook to check where the gold is going in the sluice boxes.”
We learn that Tony’s costs are spiralling out of control and he needs to recover every grain of gold he can from Kevin’s operation before investing in the next one.
An animated clip on the episode, which you can see in our exclusive clip below, shows how gold should settle in the first few feet of the sluices.
If Tony finds gold at the bottom of the ripples it means the dredge is blowing thousands of dollars worth of gold right off the end.
Right on cue, Tony finds a ton of gold dust at the bottom of the sluice box, which means his money is being flushed down the toilet.
Beets is remarkably calm considering the wasted money!
Gold Rush airs Fridays at 8/9c on Discovery.