Info What is Saturation Diving?

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There was a lot of concern in the early 1970s over Aseptic Bone Necrosis in Sat divers. We spent hours getting head-toe bone scans for baselines (that really sucked). It was rare in those days that divers chosen for sat would not already have some issues from years of surface jumps on under-developed mixed gas tables.

The last I saw, it was not significant with divers who spend most of their careers doing sat rather than surface supplied or deep bell bounce dives. It has been a while since I looked into it but it sounded like deep mixed gas divers were far more susceptible. Saturation decompression is very conservative and infrequent compared to all other commercial work. This is probably a better question for the Medical Forum.
 
I'm a new diver, I just read through this thread, very imformative. I liked the video, stats and the ADS stuff is pretty wild!
 
A very interesting thread.
It would be nice for those interested, the norwegian movie "Dykket", released in 1989. The original version is spoken in english with several texts in norwegian, though it can be understood completely without understanding the norwegian texts. It's hard to find, but can be found in Internet.
I think however that the movie has several errors, but much of the saturation diving subject is covered.
Also, a newer one, Pioner, released in 2013, also norwegian, covers the sat diving subject, and many parts of the operation is shown.
 
What is Saturation Diving?

Readers Digest Version....... Something you will regreat when your body hits the 60's........:wink:
 
... Readers Digest Version....... Something you will regreat when your body hits the 60's........:wink:

I really haven't found that. The divers that I see with a lot of physical problems did tons of surface-supplied mixed gas and deep bell bounce dives. Most of the sat divers I know that made it onto sat early in their careers are physically in great shape. Can't say what will happen when we hit our 70s and 80s but so far so good.

What young divers with a lot of money and a month off between being offshore do to their livers is another matter. :wink:
 
Here is a video of one of the newer and largest DSVs (Diving Support Vessel). The narration is imperfect but designed for the general public.


There were much larger semi-submersible DSVs in the late 1970s that could operate in higher sea states, but they were just too expensive to operate.
 
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Here is a video of one of the newer and largest DSVs (Diving Support Vessel)...

The Skandi Arctic is a beast! She can carry up to 24 divers in Sat (6 Chambers divided into 2 separate 350M Sat systems). Each system has a moonpool and a separate 18 man hyperbaric lifeboat (I had attached a photo in a previous post).

The company I previously worked for (Global Industries now Technip) owned it and I was invited to tour it when it was christened in 2009 (Vatne, Norway). I thought she was pretty luxurious for a DSV; equipped with a cinema, library, gym and 99 reasonably large staterooms.

I understand that they experienced a diving accident on her last year. Apparently a Bell suffered an drop of several meters in the moonpool during diver recovery. The main umbilical was ripped loose in the fall and gas began escaping from the Bell. The divers managed to shut off the valves, so no one was hurt. Considering that a fatal depressurization would have resulted in the death of 3 divers, they were fortunate. This was under investigation, but I haven't heard anything further.
 
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