BSAC - Diver Awareness Campaign

[DinghyMan]

As a diver and raggy I thought the following link to the BSAC Diver Awareness Campaign might help make some more people aware of what an A flag means and also to remind dive boats to display one;

http://www.bsac.com/page.asp?section=1024&sectionTitle=Safety Talk This Month

I didn't want to start another COLREGS arguement but I have raised a couple of questions with BSAC about their campaign not pointing out to dive boats that the A flag needs to be rigid, minimum 1m in size, and only used when involved in diving.

 

[srm]

As a diver and raggy I thought the following link to the BSAC Diver Awareness Campaign might help make some more people aware of what an A flag means and also to remind dive boats to display one;

Well about 99.765% of my sightings of vessels displaying the 'A' flag have been when the vessel has been tied up and deserted in harbour, motoring at a speed that no diver could keep up with, or a few on boats ashore or in a car park.

I know what it should mean according to the International Code, but in practice it is used as a decoration with no useful meaning.

Perhaps you would do a lot better to start a campaign to get the people who drive dive boats to take the flag down when divers are picked up. Once it is used correctly you could then address details like rigid flags.

 

[Ariadne]

Not just BSAC but PADI as well please lets have some joined up thinking here!

My main issue is that (most of the divers in the Med' fly the Canadian dive club flag you know the red thing with a stripe and not A), the flags need to be rigid and as big as possible more than that they need to clean, not faded and flown as high as possible so they can be seen from a pitching boat - or a well healed yacht.

There is no point at shouting at any boat to slow down and move away 'cos they cant see your flag. Just a get grear big one made up - cheaper than an accident.

 

[DinghyMan]

Well about 99.765% of my sightings of vessels displaying the 'A' flag have been when the vessel has been tied up and deserted in harbour, motoring at a speed that no diver could keep up with, or a few on boats ashore or in a car park.

Perhaps you would do a lot better to start a campaign to get the people who drive dive boats to take the flag down when divers are picked up. Once it is used correctly you could then address details like rigid flags.

...the flags need to be rigid and as big as possible more than that they need to clean, not faded and flown as high as possible so they can be seen from a pitching boat - or a well healed yacht.

There is no point at shouting at any boat to slow down and move away 'cos they cant see your flag. Just a get great big one made up - cheaper than an accident.

All points I raised with BSAC and will be interested to see their response.

 

[srm]

Websites bsac.com and bsac.org seem to have sunk - was going to make my points directly to them but keep getting dns error.

 

[Skysail]

bsac.com works from here

 

[bilbobaggins]

It's not just the amateurs' dive boats....

More than once I've seen, while sailing in the Sound of Mull, a respectably-sized Italianate motor yacht anchored right over a Protected Wreck site. Wondering what it was doing stopped there, we put the 10 x 50s on her, and noted the chrome pillar valves and black-and-white of dive bottles peeping above her bulwarks - she was a chartered dive tender.

Then we spotted, some 200-250 meters away downtide, about where the CalMac Oban-Castlebay ferry was shortly to pass, some little black half-round objects, some with orange-tipped snorkel tubes. The divers were finning back from their drift dive, no-one was on the tender's deck watching them, and the 'divers down' flag was about the size of a sheet of A4, visible only from the landward side.

Sports divers, their charter operators, and 'Darwin Awards' come to mind.....

 

[Seafort]

Sports divers, their charter operators, and 'Darwin Awards' come to mind.....

As a diver I would have to agree with that.
BUT
Untill I started diving I had no idea what an SMB was and once stopped a crew member hooking one, just off the pontoons, with a boat hook.
As for the "A" flag they seldom conform to regs and tend to be flown at all times. The DAN flag is the same. I was told by a diving instructor "It's ok for the DAN flag".

Now how many people know what clearance to give a dive boat displaying a diver down flag? (I should say what clearance the divers expect).

Dave.

 

[Alfie168]

I nearly ran down a diver on Derwentwater donkeys years ago. No dive boat, no flag, he just popped up in front of my Enterprise dinghy dead ahead about 20 feet at most. I was able to bear away comfortably. Another ten seconds and I'd have clonked him good and proper.

From Roger McGough's Sporting Relations 1974

"Cousin Doris married a frogman,
In the hope he would turn into a handsome prince.
Instead, he turned into a sewer near Gravesend
And was...never....seen...again."


Tim

 

[lenseman]

Untill I started diving I had no idea what an SMB

Nice one Dave, I tend to agree with you!

I have been sailing and worked at sea and on the water for many, many years and I have NEVER ever heard of a SMB.

I have actually spend some time on a diving site just now to try and work out what it meant and even then it was none too clear! It's all very well if you are in the diving game. For anyone like myself who has never heard of an SMB, I believe it stands for a Surface Marker Buoy? What it does and how it is deployed is beyond me? Prop fouling is possibly if it suddenly appears on the water dead ahead!

Why invent another symbol for 'Divers Down' and expect everyone not in your particular hobby to fully understand, is beyond me. That said, I fully concur with those who say that the 'Flag ALPHA' is often used inappropriately, is too small or is faded badly. Like the flag on the first moon shot, it needs a wire to hold out the fly and a swivel like a racing burgee so it can be seen.

 

[Skysail]

Drift diving:

http://ezinearticles.com/?Introduction-to-Drift-Diving&id=1061032

As the divers may surface at a distance from their boat, the SMB is released to mark their location when they surface.

I have heard quite a few calls from dive boats who have lost their divers!

 

[Wunja]

Text book answer...

When doing a drift dive a buddy pair would normally have a permantly buoyant SMB with them at all times to allow the covering boat (or shore party in the case of a dive from a beach) to follow them. Delayed SMBs are normally inflated at the end of a dive on a reef or wreck or where there is a risk that the SMB line may get tangled.

Of course what happens in reality is another matter.

 

[HoratioHB]

The SMB is really so the dive boat can keep track of their divers when they are drifting with the tide and so know where to pick them up. To my knowledge they are not meant to warn other boat users of their presence except for the fact that if you see something floating in the water you would probably not drive over the top of it!! Out of interest they are normally long orange sausages about one meter long but often float horizontally.

 

[srm]

Drift diving:

http://ezinearticles.com/?Introduction-to-Drift-Diving&id=1061032


I have heard quite a few calls from dive boats who have lost their divers!

And some full time dive boat skippers who arn't to bothered - "one of the other boats will pick them up"

 

[DinghyMan]

My SMB is like this:

but can be faded to pink or can be yellow or yellow one side orange the other. I've put SOLAS tape on mine and "Diver Below" in big letters.

Depending on type may lay flat on surface and be almost invisible, the one above tends to sit nicely stood up due to the weight of the bottle that powers it.

I wouldn't always use it when drift diving but always use it before surfacing, usually sending up from 12 to 15m then will do safety stop at 6m for 3 mins. Others may use them when doing decompression stops so could be below it for a good while. Diver should check above and around before launching as part of their checks.

Divers won't always have surface cover so there may be SMB's but no dive boat.

SMB should be held by diver not attached so in case of being run down or collected or pulled up by someone trying to work out what it is it shouldn't pull the diver up.

 

[bilbobaggins]

It's quite a few years now since I last took a 'shower of sports divers' - or a 'pile of plongeurs' or a 'demersal of divers' - out into the North Sea with intent to lose a few along the way, but I seem to remember the approved technique then was to have the 'newbie' reach for the surface first, with his arm in the air.

And, if some fast speedboat or jetski immediately took it off at the elbow, that was a cue for the rest to fin away to somewhere a bit safer.....