Learning to dive - useful for cruisers?

beancounter

beancounter

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We're starting a "Skills Audit" and "Training Needs Analysis" as part of planning our Great Escape (errm - sorry - slipped into consultant-speak there... /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif)

Would some diving training be useful? Thinking about getting below the boat for prop/anchor problems - I know that often one can find a local diver to help, but I'm sure the Law of Sod would apply, and one wouldn't be around when needed. (We're only talking Baltic/Med, not remote coral atolls).

Any thoughts?
 
I didnt learn to dive for the same reason, (did it for fun.. and it can be amazing in the right places!), but there is no doubt that I would be over the side before calling a local diver, even if one was available.

It would definitely be a useful asset, and you would have a lot of fun doing it...
 
Yep, we did our dive training on arival in the Carib, but wished we'd sorted it before we'd left and had our own gear. If you're in the Med the dive gear in Spain seemed very cheap compared to the UK. Next time I'm taking two sets of gear for fun and emergencies, and may look at some way of having a compressor on board.

Mainly for fun but there are times when it could prove useful.
 
I carry a small (5lt.) tank just for emergencies, and I actually had to use it on a few cases when calling a diver was not an option, such as:

- recovering anchor and chain when my wife managed to drop the whole lot to the bottom /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

- free an anchor that got stuck under a rock /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

- cut a potato bag that got wrapped around the propeller /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

...and these are just examples, the full list is much longer!

So yes, this skill may come up handy, and it would be advisable to get some practice/training: doing any kind of work underwater, even few meters down, when breathing from a tank, is a bit tricky if you've never done it.
 
Yes for usefulness, yes for pleasure - but do take proper instruction before buying your own kit. You'll soon find what you like and what works (or not) for you. Get SWMBO trained too - it increases the pleasure and safety immeasurably and she can provide top cover whilst you're carrying out those litle jobs underneath.
 
Yes I did the dive course for the same reason as most people free the prop etc.

I do not carry dive gear no room I intend to hire it if I need it.

Not needed it so far in the last two years of sailing from Britain to the Med.

Fingers crossed long may the luck hold.
 
I bought a small diving (2l) bottle this summer after we ran into serious trouble with a net/plastic sacking/rope got caught around our prop. We exhausted ourselves snorkelling down to clear it.
I've done a diving course and so far have used the bottle for setting in our anchor, cleaning the bottom etc. You could use it every day if you wanted to. Actually its good fun messing about under your boat.
The bottle comes in a kit with regulator etc. and cost Eur300 in Italy. Its easy to get it filled and I find that the diving schools usually don't even charge since it can be filled in a matter of seconds. It lasts me about 15-20 minutes under the boat which is probably enough time for any emergency work.
 
yep, very worthwhile i reckon. Not very much training needed for just near-surface work really - i only go under the boat and wd use an expert for picking lost stuff up from 10m+, otherwise declaring the stuff "lost".

unless you get realy expert, beginner courses may not entirely prepare you for plonking about under the boat. I use wetsuit, gloves and some sort of footwear to avoid self-inflicted damage. A bicycle helmet would also be a good idea. For my own peace of mind i switch of the engine starter relays.

Force 4 have Kolision kits, useful for patching any urgent damage from the outside.
 
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yep, very worthwhile i reckon. Not very much training needed for just near-surface work really

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Not too sure about this..... amongst other things, the rate of pressure change with depth is greater the nearer the surface you are, and pressure change is one of the things which kills you.
 
Think carrying a small bottle for fouled props etc is good idea but I would sound a note of caution. While diving is fun in warm clear waters (ie NOT uk) it is potentially one of the most dangerous 'hobbies' there is because if things go wrong they go from problem to dead very quickly so your saftey routines need to be so ingrained as to be automatic.

If you want to take it up for fun you need to do the trainning and then dive often enought to be in well in practice and you should never dive alone so both of you need to be into it.

If you just want it for sorting problems then look at teatherd diving (ie on a manned safety line) with an absolute depth limit of 10m and normally less but you should be able to comv fortably swimm to the surfice without a breath. You still need training even at this level.
 
Untrained diving even to 3-5m is inviting a trip to a hospital, or at worst, a mortuary! If you must do it without training, never EVER hold your breath on the way up. Let the compressed air out of your lungs as you surface, otherwise you can do yourself in.
 
Indeed you were not sir. I thought it worth throwing that in just in case a more gung-ho reader thought about buying one of those 2l bottles and having a go.

I have never regretted learning to dive and thoroughly recommend it.

Pops
 
In 8 years living aboard and cruising coasts from Scotland to Turkey I've used my diving gear about 15 times to untangle my own problems, and about the same amount again to untangle other people's problems. They split about 30% anchor frolics, 60% propeller frolics (some of which could have been handled free diving) and three other episodes (big sea net, tree jammed between keel and fin, fishing float ditto).

The kit cost about £300, and a week's intensive training cost about the same. That was a few years ago though . . .

Calling a diver out costs from Euros 30 to pounds 60 an episode, so, cash wise, I'm about quits. However, for 4 or 5 episodes there was little or no chance of finding a diver quickly, and for one episode (25m motor boat in a hurry) a grateful owner gave me a case of very expensive wine.

Also, it's been great fun.

So, if you're spending 6 months a year cruising through lots of anchorages, and thinking of several years doing this, and you've got stowage space, it's a great idea to invest in the training and the kit.
 
I am a very experienced diver and intend to take all my kit with me when we 'escape' next year. What terriifies me about these posts is the casual lack of knowledge. Diving is great fun but incredibly dangerous if you don't follow the basic rules. For example no-one here has mentioned whether they are doing their maintenance dives with a buddy or not, from the words used it would seem not. As my wife does not dive I will be in the position of having to do this sort of dive solo as well but I will be carrying two independant air sources - main tank and pony bottle and hopefuly limiting my depth very carefully. Anything more and especially below 10 metres I will be looking for someone else to come with me.
In UK on average 12-15 divers die per year and in most cases it is because they did not follow the rules - which you won't know until you have trained and then need to keep in practice. Mind you - do the training because there is so much more than just freeing the prop to do once you are safely down there!!
 
As someone who came back to sailing after 20 odd years as a totally involved BSAC diver, it is very difficult to advise if you should do a course and what level of training you should undertake.
Some people quickly gain total control of their body underwater while others flounder around! Risk assessment is a major part of diving under a rocky rolly boat or following an anchor line down to say 10 mtrs and you don't get taught that on a basic course.
A technically minded person who can think things through could probably get all the required info for basic shallow water diving from reading a Dive Manual and doing practice sessions in shallow, warm, clear water. Others can't get it right after several months of closely supervised training.
 
um, ok, ease up. I didn't say zero experience and in terms of being happy underwater i am an ex-club swimmer who paced for an olympic gold medallist and can still swim 50m underwater.

Loads of divers - even teachers - seem to be almost non-swimmers. The swimming pool traing was done incredibly incredibly seriously, as though it was a big deal to sit at the bottom of a pool 4 feet deep.

I'd generally free a prop with a face mask and bread knife, cos sometimes some speed is needed. The limit of depth for boat maintenance is the draft so twil have to be one heck of a boat to be more than a 6feet. In other wrds, about the same depth as a swmming pool which demands no lessons to use at the 2m depth.

Completely different going down any depth of course. I wd not go below what i could comfortably free-dive. For me tis just a means to an end, boat maint, no unravelling anchors for me - get a diver.
 
Physics lesson for Richard Faulkner

er not actualy true. Actualy umm completely and utterly wrong.

The pressure at any point in a fluid is H x d x g where H is the depth, d the density, g the gravitational constant, all in appropriate units.

In other words the pressure change in a uniform fluid like water is precisely proportional to depth, twice at 4m than at 2m. Twice the pressure at 2m than at 1m. Twice the pressure at 1m that at half a metre. The rate of pressure change does *not* change in a uniform fluid.

Now, the pressure wil be higher if density is higher - which means that if anything (due to lower temperaturefrinstance) the denisty would be a bit higher at (say) 8m than twice the pressure at 4m. Cos the bit of water between 4 and 8metres was colder, hence denser, hence extered more force/pressure that the watwer betwen 0m and 4m.

So the pressure change would be *less* nearer the surface (where water gradualy gets warmer and warmer and hence less and less dense) and NOT greater.

So in other words, the reality is the exact opposite of your post.

Don't worry - wth a few exceptions Im imagine that dive instructors mostly didn't do terribly briliantly at o-level phsics and hence are full of this sort of bollx, which may be where you learned it :-)
 
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