"Correct Weighting" Identified as #1 Needed Improvement in SCUBA Diving

[stuartv]

I grew up snorkeling in the Gulf of Mexico and north FL rivers. It never occurred to me until I was typing that previous post that there are people who snorkel and never hold their breath and dive down to look at stuff. I can definitely see (now) qualifying "skin divers" as not including those people.

 

[2airishuman]

You did not include a third possibility--the diver was well trained years before but has not dived for a long time and forgotten much of it.

More importantly, as someone who used to read the DAN reports avidly, I found that only a very small percentage of the very small percentage of dives ending in fatalities included a problem related to diver skills. The most common of these, as was verified by a joint PADI/DAN studies, involved rapid ascents following OOA emergencies. That is why PADI's most recent course changes focus on making sure that does not happen. The most common problems leading to fatalities are health-related. The next most common I would group under the general heading "diver decided to do something stupid and dangerous."

I've read the reports, too. I find that the data is thin. Aggregation of conjecture in so many cases, susceptible to systemic bias on the part of various observers and interpreters. It is, for example, difficult to characterize the extent to which CO contamination is a hazard, because fatalities that result from it may be mischaracterized as medical events since gas isn't routinely analyzed after an accident. Buddy system vs solo dives would be an example of an area where the interpretation of the data has changed over time. Each accident has multiple causes, and DAN has done their level best to untangle each sequence of events in a rigorous fashion, but the data still isn't perfect.

It is still valuable to learn what we can, and to work to make diving safer. I believe that due humility is called for when drawing conclusions from the data, however.

 

[2airishuman]

I grew up snorkeling in the Gulf of Mexico and north FL rivers. It never occurred to me until I was typing that previous post that there are people who snorkel and never hold their breath and dive down to look at stuff.

It is my experience that most tourists on a boat offering "snorkeling excursions" do not venture below the surface.

I can definitely see (now) qualifying "skin divers" as not including those people.

A quick google search on "skin diver" reveals several contradictory definitions reflecting the evolution in usage. Looks like PADI sees it as snorkeling with "short visits" under water.

Another source defines it as freediving without a wetsuit.

Other sources appear to define it as any diving performed without standard diving dress (hardhat suit and surface air supply).

 

[dmaziuk]

A quick google search on "skin diver" reveals several contradictory definitions reflecting the evolution in usage.

Urban Dictionary: skin diving

HTH

 

[boulderjohn]

Here is a bit of history that may help understand the evolution of the term.

In the early 1960s, a retail trade organization existed with the goal of assisting stores selling scuba gear. It was named the National Association of Skin Diving Stores (NASDS). later in that decade, it realized that the best way to sell gear wa to have the stores that sell it teach people how to use it, and it changed its name to the National Association of Skin Diving Schools. It was still using that name in 1972, when it published its book Safe Scuba. I don't know when it changed its name to National Association of Scuba Diving Schools

 

[stuartv]

Just for the record, I was really only asking what george_austin meant by the term so that I could understand exactly what he meant with the statement in which he used the term "skin diver".

 

[TMHeimer]

I grew up snorkeling in the Gulf of Mexico and north FL rivers. It never occurred to me until I was typing that previous post that there are people who snorkel and never hold their breath and dive down to look at stuff. I can definitely see (now) qualifying "skin divers" as not including those people.

I had never heard the term "free diver" until 10 years ago when I joined SB. I too figured snorkeler meant mask/fins/snorkel-on the surface OR diving down. To my personal recollection, "skin diver" up through the 60s MEANT scuba diver. In 1965 my older brother looked like Mike Nelson in his getup--he was a "skin diver". I don't know exactly what that term refers to today. Maybe someone can tell us why someone wearing a tank and possibly wetsuit in 1966 would be called a "skin diver"--where's the skin? And why was the magazine called Skin Diver?

 

[stuartv]

I had never heard the term "free diver" until 10 years ago when I joined SB. I too figured snorkeler meant mask/fins/snorkel-on the surface OR diving down. To my personal recollection, "skin diver" up through the 60s MEANT scuba diver. In 1965 my older brother looked like Mike Nelson in his getup--he was a "skin diver". I don't know exactly what that term refers to today. Maybe someone can tell us why someone wearing a tank and possibly wetsuit in 1966 would be called a "skin diver"--where's the skin? And why was the magazine called Skin Diver?

I'm guessing it's what somebody said earlier - that back then a skin diver meant a diver not in a hard hat rig.

 

[JamesBon92007]

I had never heard the term "free diver" until 10 years ago when I joined SB. I too figured snorkeler meant mask/fins/snorkel-on the surface OR diving down. To my personal recollection, "skin diver" up through the 60s MEANT scuba diver. In 1965 my older brother looked like Mike Nelson in his getup--he was a "skin diver". I don't know exactly what that term refers to today. Maybe someone can tell us why someone wearing a tank and possibly wetsuit in 1966 would be called a "skin diver"--where's the skin? And why was the magazine called Skin Diver?

One explanation that I read many years ago (possibly in Skin Diver Magazine) was that the term "skin diver" was derived from the term "skinny dipping" which, of course, involves wearing only skin while swimming. I'm not saying that it makes any sense to me, that's just what I read. If you were to ask Mike Nelson my guess is that he would say he was a skin diver. Somewhere in the back of my mind it had something to do with simply not wearing the old helmet-type dive suit and having a portable air source (like what 2airishuman found).

Matter-of-fact I named my boat the Little Dipper based upon the supposed correlation between skinny dipping and skin diving plus the fact that the Little Dipper is one name for the constellation that contains the North Star which was once used by sailors for navigation. People laughed at me when I called from my radio.

For that matter, are you skinny dipping if you are alone, or are you just swimming naked? And if you are over-weighted, are you still naked (just trying to keep it within the original subject matter of the thread)?

 

[boulderjohn]

And if you are over-weighted, are you still naked (just trying to keep it within the original subject matter of the thread)?

If you are overweight, it is not skinny dipping. It is chunky dunking.