Underwater breathing thingy

Unless you are in a marina, in which case you need two divers, a fully kitted diver on the surface, a dive master, all qualified, and a filed dive plan. Helath and Safety sometimes seems excessively nannying. Oh - and the maximum depth around my berth was 9 feet ...

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Re: \'ang on a minute

thing is you'll find yourself putting weights on to control buoyancy otherwise constantly struggling to get close enough to brush the crap off - more so with keel boat than motorboat i'd imagine. weights fine if you know what you're doing but if mistake made and boat is in deep water ..... down you go ...

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I agree - but the question related to kit for unfouling the props. 1 metre down, not 10metres.

The scaremongering on this thread does seem unwarranted, imho. It is not illegal to use breathing apparatus in the limited fashion as initially queried, although dive schools would have us think otherwise.

There are numerous occassions when the ability to get on the outside of the boat - and fairly quickly - is very useful, if not even a life-saver or at least a "boatsaver". But no, shudder, the bends, worry worry, here's a nice liferaft and instead of saving the boat with underwater sealant or untangling the props in deep water before hitting the rocks, let's let it sink and call out the lifeboats. It's the recommended procedure, you know.

Again, i do not question the requirement for training on a dive to any real depth - say deeper than a swimming pool 2-3 metres.

But i question large powerboats with no means of access to the props, their sole means of propulsion. Likewise, without dive gear, they have limited access to the outside of the boat, nor any means of effecting an outside repair if needed to the hull, their primary means of staying afloat. Cheap dive gear would give them that access and is incredibly cheap in comparison to the boat and the possible dangers which can easily be averted.

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Re: \'ang on a minute

ah, but you are (not unreasonably, i admit) assuming I am a total twat.

Thus i would have only half-screwed-together the equipment, chosen a very rough day on which to go under the boat, not told anyone what i was doing, dropped the tanks on my foot and (if survived all that) put lots and lots of weights on and leapt in, possibly smashing myself on the boat next door, and poisoned myself with marina water on the way to the bottom the very deepest marina i had twatsihly managed to find...

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Driving better after a drink?

Do you, surely that's irresponsible?

Done lots of diving have you? Don't see it listed as one of your hobbies. I get fed up with people pontificating about solo diving. Don't advocate it for novices, but for scrubbing the boats bum after getting familiar with the kit, and a bit of training, well that's a different matter. I would suggest that to be safe you have someone else on the boat.

But I was only responding to the original question, think the idea of this mickey mouse gear is crap. All IMHO.

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Re: \'ang on a minute

i never thought that ..... !!

i knew there'd be somebody leaping in with his anchor roond his breeks ....

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Re: Driving better after a drink?

don't see sarcasm listed as one of your hobbies either.
You may well be an expert, and capable of putting the equipment together and know how to react in an emergency. However to suggest that an inexperienced, untrained person don diving equipment and bob about under the water is IMHO - irresponsible.

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Re: Driving better after a drink?

You'd better read my posts again, have always advocated proper training. Seems like we at least agree on that!

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Secret is. Always sail in the blue bits and never in the white or especially brown bits. The white bit is a buffer zone. A bit like amber traffic lights.

<hr width=100% size=1> <font color=blue>No one can force me to come here.<font color=red> I'm a volunteer!!.<font color=blue>

Haydn
 
Re: \'ang on a minute

So what do you do when a belt strap or a strap on the tank gets tangled in the prop and you are stuck, this could happen because of the wash from a nearby boat, currents or whatever, or you forget about the tides because you are so busy and end up being trapped under the boat between it and the mud! As a diver myself I would not recommend anyone going out getting gear and using it without proper training. As mentioned elsewhere it does look as if the Health & Safety goes OTT, but half what they do as a starter and you will see that it is still a lot more support and experience than a novice diver on their own. Perhaps it is because of all the novices killing themselves that H & S has stepped in, they have their standards for fully trained and qualified divers for a reason, I wonder what they would recommend for someone with their own tank and untrained! I could see currents dragging people away into the paths of other vessels, not a nice sight I would suggest. Anyway for a few hundred quid, if you really want to do your own maintenance, may I suggest that a PADI open water course would be a good investment, and could save your life /forums/images/icons/wink.gif

Don't be fooled, although diving can give you the most amazing feeling, it IS dangerous and should be treated with respect.

<hr width=100% size=1><font color=purple> "You only see what you recognise, and you only recognise what you know" <font color=purple>
 
Re: \'ang on a minute

The same could happen to a snorkeller with a weight belt on. No training required.

Can't see diving to scrub a boat as dangerous, and I've done more than a few 'dangerous' sports in my time, if you apply just a little common sense.



<hr width=100% size=1> I asked an economist for her phone number....and she gave me an estimate
 
Re: \'ang on a minute

Ah! exactly, are we talking about people with common sense or not? Would you say that everyone on this forum has common sense? If not, then clear health warnings have to be made on everything like this in order to protect those with less common sense, from getting injured or even killed.

<hr width=100% size=1><font color=purple> "You only see what you recognise, and you only recognise what you know" <font color=purple>
 
Re: \'ang on a minute

I'd guess that most regulars on this forum have enough common sense to go over the side with a breathing kit of any sort.

Health warnings are for the idiots who sue McDonalds for having hot coffee, though it does seem to be a lucrative occupation

<hr width=100% size=1> I asked an economist for her phone number....and she gave me an estimate
 
Re: \'ang on a minute

I've got a PDAI qualification - or Pay And Die Instantly, as it's often called. Good fun to do it as part of a beach holiday but I'm not sure I would say it's exactly an expert course. Its dogged adherence to the buddy system seems to prove that.

I really can't see why splashing about under the boat 1-2 metres with an air supply is any more dangerous than splashing about without one. Sure, you can get trapped, just as you can if free swimming. You can run out of air, just like you can when swimming down. The air just makes it a bit easier, that's all. I accept that if you get a lobster pot line wrapped round the prop 100 metres of an onshore headland, then that might not be the time to take off the cellophane wrapping and give a go first time round but otherwise, I think it's quite a good bit of kit. Not for your pro natch, nor for somebody wanting to dive for pleasure - but as a compact bit of kit in emergencies or the marina, I think its fine.

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Re: here we go...

It would have to be one hell of a large strap to get tangled in the props. But if it did, I'd stay calm, find the cause of the snagging and remove it. I'd be able to see how to do so because I would be in clear water with good visibilty, unlike some who dive in murky or unclear water. I'd be in flat water, and would have at least 3 metres under the boat because I never anchor in less. I have got snagged once or twice, and untangled myself. If I couldn't remove it fairly pronto , I'd stay calm again, and still breathing, release the jacket and escape.

I wouldn't get swept away by currents, ever, because if i was going to do maintenance I'd be in slack tide. I don't forget about tides because I'm intelligent, like most but not all others and always have my brain in "on" mode, especially when considering diving or other activities which carry an element of risk. I mean if I forgot about the tides and just jumped in, say, near the shipping lanes, as night was falling, as you say you have done, then I'd be like you, which I am not. No, really! Imagine really REALLY clever people - lots of people hereabouts are like that. Honest, it's true!

As an example, I can reveal that I wasn't in slack tide but still had to go down, in an emergency, I'd be attached to the boat with a long rope. Brilliant eh?

Some people fail to think of these simple precautions, and believe that if pay money to "go on a course" run by sometimes quite narrowly-skilled people they will acquire all the appropriate commonsense and wisdom. They might, but they might not, and without commonsense their weak brain wil fail to teach what they learned, and are also likely to fail to evaluate the risks for themselves.

In fact they may only a modicum of skill, and false confidence. The quality of some open diving teaching might be demonstrated by the almost 100% failure of commercial dive boats to follow IRPCS rules regarding the size of a legal "Alpha"dive flag which should be a flag or a facsimile of a flag such that it can be seen from all appropriate approaches and be of height minimum 1 metre.

The above demonstates the fact that even after "training", some people are still far less safe than some others with far less training, but far far more wisdom and common sense.



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Re: \'ang on a minute

excellent point - the dangerous thing here is 'cleaning the bottom of the boat whilst in the water'.
Any way you approach it it is dangerous - however experience and common sense will get you past most of the dangers if you are also lucky.
In shallow water the boat itself is the main source of danger - have a watcher looking for wakes (especially in Studland where the condor wake can put a boat literally on top of you in seconds)
In deeper water beware currents and tides that can sweep you away from an anchored boat in seconds.
With regards to the use of tanks, training and diving alone etc I would have thought that an experienced snorkel diver using well maintained SCUBA equipement around his boat diving up to 3m, on his own, would represent a very very small additional risk - but nevertheless one does exist.
I speak as one who accepts this risk.

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Re: here we go...

/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif Well that woke you up!! /forums/images/icons/laugh.gif

Nice to see healthy debate about safety on here, you never know your very good explanation could save the life of a less common sensicle non diver trained, wanting to scrub his own bum forum reader, if there are any /forums/images/icons/wink.gif

<hr width=100% size=1><font color=purple> "You only see what you recognise, and you only recognise what you know" <font color=purple>
 
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