Curiosity question for instructors

[jbd]

NAUI has a skill called a scuba bailout. Other agencies may have this also. Essentially you jump into the water holding all your gear and settle into at least 8 feet of water and then put all the stuff on and then surface and tread water for a specified time.

Here's my question--where did this skill come from or who dreamed it up and why?

 

[MikeFerrara]

I'll take a stab at it. I haven't been around long enough to know where the drill came from but it goes way back. It is esentially a confidence builder/stress test. It demonstrates general comfort in the water as well as comfort and familiarity with equipment. I teach IANTD and PADI. IANTD uses the bail out while PADI does not. Last week I had some PADI Dive Master candidates who are also IANTD Dive Master candidates do bailouts. It was fun and even though all these divers were originally trained PADI (by me) and had never done it before none found the drill difficult. IT's just fun and practice/games in the pool.

 

[VTWarrenG]

Gear familiarization.

It obviously isn't something you'll normally have to do.

- Warren

 

[Vinga]

I figure it's a stress test that might keep otherwise capable folks from getting certified. NAUI used to be on some sort of exclusivity trip, making learning to dive difficult. They've been trying to catch up with PADI ever since PADI had created for them the standardised, modular teaching method.
Way back when, scuba was a dangerous "sport", when guys would steal the fire extinguisher from their high school for a tank, and make their reg from directions in Popular Mechanics magazine. Different passtime now, with not so much need to keep people from enjoying diving.
Cheers,
Melissa
Retired Padi OWSI 37600

 

[TexasMike]

Sounds familiar to the ditch & don excercise that I will be going through in my SDI DiveMaster course (remove all gear at the deep end of pool. Surface. Take a few breaths, duck dive, and don everything and swim back to shallow end.)

And like Mike F. said, purpose is to be a confidence builder.

 

[jbd]

TexasMike--NAUI also has the ditch and don excercise. I agree that it has the intention of building confidence etc. I wonder how "they" came up with such an excercise. Did it originate with NAUI or was it a product of military training before SCUBA was a sport or recreational activity? Could it be that Vinga is correct and it started as an exclusivity thing?

 

[Scottri]

I did my initial certification through SSI and we had to submerge to the bottom of the pool, remove all of our gear, surface and go back down and put it all back on. I am currently doing my PADI Divemaster course and they do not teach that skill for basic OW students but DM's have to exchange all of their gear with another person while buddy breathing.


Scot

 

[chris_b]

Originally posted by jbd
where did this skill come from or who dreamed it up and why?

Our NAUI instructor doesn't have this as one of our required skills, but has something much more difficult as a stress test or "confidence builder." We have to throw our mask, fins, and snorkel into the deep end, wait for them to settle on the bottom, then jump in holding our breath, retrieve and don fins, retrieve and don mask, clear mask, and then come back up to the surface.

When I finally was able to do it, I did feel confident and happy that I could complete this skill. However, my wife still can't do it, and she's just about ready to give up on scuba diving now because of it ;-0

I really hope she can make it, but even with a lot of positive encouragement from me, this kind of skill may keep her out of scuba. Of course this will make it more difficult and less fun for me to able to go diving-- rather than being the sport that we wanted to get into together, I'll get stuck being addicted to it alone! ;-(

Chris

 

[VTWarrenG]

chris,

That's stupid. Tell the instructor it's stupid (and not required by any agency -- therefore I assume he made it up), and take your wife to a new instructor who has a damned clue.

- Warren

 

[rcohn]

That's stupid. Tell the instructor it's stupid (and not required by any agency -- therefore I assume he made it up), and take your wife to a new instructor who has a damned clue.

You guys scream about raising standards, then when an instructor does, you're still unhappy.

This is close to the exercise we did for YMCA dive master. Gear on the bottom in the deep end on lane 6 with a diver to help hand it to us. We did a surface dive and swam underwater from lane 1 to the gear, donned and cleared it before surfacing.

It's an excellent exercise, the most challenging of the DM training (not everyone could do it), but I don't think failure to pass this skill should prevent someone from completing BOW training.

Ralph