Captain leaving the vessel... no crew?

[jrmiah]

My understanding is that as Captain, I am not allowed to leave the vessel.

Lets say in a situation where the Captain is the only one onboard and a diver is in need of a surface rescue? Does the Captain go in? Ive seen 6-pack boats where the Captain is running the boat without crew and acting both as Captain and the Insured Dive Professional (thats required for dive boat insurance).. How does that work in an emergency?

 

[rjack321]

1) Sounds like those operators might want to rethink their rescue options
2) You might think about Colregs Rule 2 again; there are no absolute rules or regulations. Do what good seamanship requires with the circumstances and resources at hand.

 

[SkipperJohn]

Kirk used to do it all the time.

 

[Capt Jim Wyatt]

My understanding is that as Captain, I am not allowed to leave the vessel.

Lets say in a situation where the Captain is the only one onboard and a diver is in need of a surface rescue? Does the Captain go in?

Jump in - do the rescue.

 

[DiveBandit]

I run a small 6 pack, I had a new DM trying out about a week ago. I dropped anchor, he rolled over the side to confirm we were on the wreck, went down, came back up 50 feet behind the boat in a full fledged panic. I'm talking mask thrown off, etc. All the paying customers were OW cert only. I had no choice but to go get him. You do what you have to do when you have to do it.

 

[ComputerJoe]

What about non-emergency departures?

If I only have non-diving crew, or none, on my 6 pack would you leave the boat to verify your anchor is secure before allowing passengers in the water?

Our diving is mainly on shipwrecks and extracating the anchor from the surface can sometimes be challenging. I'm thinking of attaching a float to the anchors tripping ring on the same dive to make retrieval easier.

 

[SkipperJohn]

I fish wrecks all the time. And never have had a diver on my boat (yet).
We use grappling hooks and straighten them out.
The second choice is to drop a danforth around 100 yards up current then dole out rode until the wreck comes up on the depthfinder. Of course you want your anchor like for the divers to use to ascend and descend so this second method is not practical and it is much more challenging.

 

[ComputerJoe]

I do not like having to hook a wreck as our wrecks are 100+ year old wooden schooners and such. But the anchor needs to hold and be near the wreck for divers to be able to return safely from a 150-200' deep dive. The most reliable method is to drop it up current and drift back into the wreck, then pay out your slack. I keep 25' of chain leader so the line will not get cut on the wreck.

Problem is that if the wind turns, the boat may start drifting 180 degrees from where it was when divers entered the water. The the chances of an anchor holding are much less.

 

[Jon Nellis]

If I need to leave the boat to help a diver or unstick an anchor I will. Usually I have an instructor as much of my charters are classes and in that case I'll have the instructor check the anchor before heading up. The same with most tech divers since they will run a reel from the anchor anyway.

As for anchoring on a wreck, if its in the sand, I'll anchor up current from it and drag the anchor back on a short scope until I think it's close enough and then pay out more line to get a decent scope. The Bruce claw style anchor is the standard for California and I go one or two sizes bigger than recommended. Lets me keep a shorter scope for easier descents. I will never buy another danforth, they require too much scope for diving.





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[scubaskipper]

Anyone from Crystal River? You see it on the manatee tours everyday. Capt. in the water shooting video and the boat dragging anchor in the wind. I've seen some blow half way across the bay.