String - you guys do recreational dive ops over there differently than over here. Here USCG licensing entails passing requirements for a given tonnage and not necesaarily a specific usage like diving, fishing, crabbing, towing. A lot of this stems from the lobbying by commercial fishing interests not to have to adhere to a lot of OSHA regulations. Any legislation that gets passed for safety purposes is usually the result of a nasty accident or loss of life.
The insurance companies that underwrite dive boats do not mandate much more specific requirements than the Coast Coast requires on a given vessel's Certificate of Inspection (COI). Vessels of any size taking 6 or fewer passengers are exempt from most of the COI strictures since they are considered uninspected vessels.
Dive boats that have aggressive rescue plans and what-ifs covered are doing this for themselves and not in response to any outside agency response. Everyone defers to the Coast Guard, and I have to tell you, meeting the Coast Guard requirements on a an inspected vessel while you're trying to keep a business afloat can be a little tough sometimes.
The idea is that if a given vessel meets Coast Guard requirements for its intended purpose of operation, then it can deal with any emergency that comes up.
In the Navy, drills are done all the time to maintain readiness. When I drove civilian dive boats, I used to have my customers help start things out by simulating being bent or having a heart attack. This met our USCG crew training requirements and kept my guys on their toes.
It's been a few years since I last drove professionally. Since then, the Coast Guard instituted new STCW (Standards of Training, Certification, & Watchkeeping) requirements, but as far as I know, none of these are tailored directly at dive boats which are a miniscule part at best of the American commercial vessel industry.
:11ztongue
