Rebreather NSS/CDS report from death at Peacock earlier this year.

[Kay Dee]

20 years of experience doesn’t mean anything.

Wholeheartedly disagree with that one.

Edit: That is, while it might not mean 'everything', 20 years of experience certainly means something.

 

[Kay Dee]

. Yes use a checklist. But it’s not that simple.

Wholeheartedly agree with that one.

 

[crofrog]

Wholeheartedly disagree with that one.

Edit: That is, while it might not mean 'everything', 20 years of experience certainly means something.

The only conclusion you can draw from what NSS-CDS wrote is that 20 years ago he got certified to cave dive and that he had “many” dives on that rebreather and that “most” of his dive were at deeper sites on that rebreather.

The problem with this statement is that it doesn’t give us any useful information to assess his experience.

On one hand he could have been certified 20 years ago to cave dive, and had sporadically dived since then accumulating 100 dives (many) over those 20 years with 80 (most) of them in deeper caves.

I think we’d all agree that 5 dives a year isn’t going to make someone proficient at diving.

Another alternative is that he has been diving the same ccr in the same manner for 20 years without any sort of continuing education, a lot has changed in those 20 years.

And the third alternative is that he was very current and proficient attending multiple classes or educational opportunities, routinely diving the breather on demanding dives and he was truly proficient at diving it.


Here is an example of an NTSB report showing the difference in what is captured.

 

[boulderjohn]

I have used them in the past but found almost all of them too complicated and gave up on them.

I have written about this in the past based upon my experience in the world of education. In assessment theory, a scoring guide for assessing student performance that is too complicated is worthless--assessors ignore it and go by their own internal guidelines. The same is true for manuals and other information guidelines--too much information is the same as (or even worse than) too little information, because it overwhelms the reader and will be ignored. It is one of the reasons that the common RTFM advice for new users of devices is unheeded--the manual they are being advised to read is too much for anyone to digest.

 

[DOBY]

Good article about a simplified and quick, pre-jump checklist. Naturally, a build checklist would be longer, more complex, and conducted at your leisure the night before or on a bench at the dive site.

Becky Kagan Schott

Becky is a 5 time Emmy Award winning underwater cameraman and photographer who’s work appears on major networks including National Geographic, Discovery Chann

rebreathertrainingcouncil.org

 

[Kay Dee]

The only conclusion you can draw from what NSS-CDS wrote is that 20 years ago he got certified to cave dive and that he had “many” dives on that rebreather and that “most” of his dive were at deeper sites on that rebreather.

The problem with this statement is that it doesn’t give us any useful information to assess his experience.

On one hand he could have been certified 20 years ago to cave dive, and had sporadically dived since then accumulating 100 dives (many) over those 20 years with 80 (most) of them in deeper caves.

I think we’d all agree that 5 dives a year isn’t going to make someone proficient at diving.

Another alternative is that he has been diving the same ccr in the same manner for 20 years without any sort of continuing education, a lot has changed in those 20 years.

And the third alternative is that he was very current and proficient attending multiple classes or educational opportunities, routinely diving the breather on demanding dives and he was truly proficient at diving it.

Here is an example of an NTSB report showing the difference in what is captured.

Argh, re my now bolded, if your talking only about that somewhat vague statement, and it seems you were in retrospect, then I agree. I admittedly did not read back through the thread, just looked at the the one liner that you seemed to make the comment 'about' (i.e. "20 years of experience on a CCR is notable and really underscores the need for continued vigilance throughout our CCR diving careers") and what I would have meant to imply if I had made that 'experience' statement .

So, on the face of it, from their statement one would 'think' they are implying that he was 'experienced', given that word's connotations, as on the other hand one would should not call someone who, as per your example, had only five or so dives a year over twenty years 'experienced' by any means, or I certainly wouldn't. (EDIT: I am not implying that that's what this diver had / may have had). But I guess ones use of the word 'experienced' might vary. So I take your point here.

 

[pisauron]

So can anyone suggest a good checklist for OC tech dives?
Would love to start using one.

 

[crofrog]

So can anyone suggest a good checklist for OC tech dives?
Would love to start using one.

I really like GUE EDGE although it’s more of a flow but the challenge response nature of it, and the team aspects covers all of the elements needed for OC diving.


Don’t underestimate the power of habits and rituals

The GUE Pre-dive Sequence

As you’d expect, Global Underwater Explorers (GUE) has a standardized approach to prepare your equipment for the dive, and its own pre-dive checklist: the GUE EDGE. Here explorer and filmmaker Dimitris Fifis preps you to take the plunge, GUE-style.

indepthmag.com

 

[sunnyboy]

I have written about this in the past based upon my experience in the world of education. In assessment theory, a scoring guide for assessing student performance that is too complicated is worthless--assessors ignore it and go by their own internal guidelines. The same is true for manuals and other information guidelines--too much information is the same as (or even worse than) too little information, because it overwhelms the reader and will be ignored. It is one of the reasons that the common RTFM advice for new users of devices is unheeded--the manual they are being advised to read is too much for anyone to digest.

Yea, the university where I teach really, really wants marking rubrics and learning outcomes. That in itself is not a bad thing, but sadly it's too often the "everything is a hammer and everything else is a nail" approach that results in unusable dreck. We had to do uni-level learning outcomes to satisfy a 3rd party certification body and ended up with stuff so generic that brushing your teeth and smiling could qualify for a degree.

 

[sunnyboy]

As to the "20 years experience", I will not comment on this diver nor this accident.

However, I had an experience hiring a programmer some years ago. The dude had all the "right" paper qualifications, and talked the lingo really well. Showed 12 years experience in the job history. But something was off. When we pressed for details, they were always vague. In the end we didn't hire because we concluded that while he may indeed have WORKED for 12 years in the industry, what he actually had was ONE YEAR experience, repeated 12 times.

I've never forgotten that lesson. You don't just need years from training, you need continued learning as well, IMO.

Again, just a person note, NOT specifically about this diver nor this accident. Personally, I thing the father was indeed very experienced (in a good way) but may simply have been distracted during the gear set-up in which one piece of equipment (the size of scrubber basket) was changed from his standard set-up.