Dive flag awareness?

[Hickdive]

Outside of the US and US-dominated areas the red and white flag isn't really recognised by boaters.

However the Alpha flag is readily identifiable by boaters who bother to look it up in a nautical almanac or similar.

 

[Lake Hickory Scuba]

Being a prominent figure in my community, former Deputy Sheriff, former Master Police Officer, current Firefighter, current EMT for local EMS, Dive Shop Owner, Instructor Trainer, Public Safety Diving Instructor, Under Water Criminal Investigator Instructor, etc., I take it upon myself to educate as many people as I can here in my area. Not only on Scuba Diving, but also on the impact (good impact) divers have in local waters. You are completely right, there are so many people that use our local waters and have no clue what a dive flag is. Being a former Law Enforcement Officer in our area, affords me the opportunity to alert and notify our local wildlife officers (boat patrol) and local deputies to the importance of educating the community. We also have a Coast Guard reserve unit on our local lake that does boating classes that we at Lake Hickory Scuba Center assist by teaching non divers what the flag is all about. I would say be proactive and introduce the flag topic into your other forums. It can only help. We stress that here in North Carolina it is state law that any public waters a flag must be flown while divers are in the water.

North Carolina General Statute 75A-13.1


(a) No person shall engage in skin diving or scuba diving in the waters of this State that are open to boating, or assist in such diving, without displaying a diver's flag from a mast, buoy, or other structure at the place of diving; and no person shall display such flag except when diving operations are under way or in preparation.


(b) The diver's flag shall be square, not less than 12 inches on a side, and shall be of red background with a diagonal white stripe, of a width equal to one fifth of the flag's height, running from the upper corner adjacent to the mast downward to the opposite outside corner.


(c) No operator of a vessel under way in the waters of this State shall permit the vessel to approach closer than 50 feet to any structure from which a diver's flag is then being displayed, except where the flag is so positioned as to constitute an unreasonable obstruction to navigation; and no person shall engage in skin diving or scuba diving or display a diver's flag in any locality that will unreasonably obstruct vessels from making legitimate navigational use of the water.


(d) A person who violates a provision of this section is guilty of a Class 3 misdemeanor and shall only be subject to a fine not to exceed twenty-five dollars ($25.00). (1969, c. 97, s. 1; 2006-185, s. 1.)


Here is a short video explaining the Law in regards to the Dive Flag in North Carolina.

The Dive Flag and The Law - YouTube

 

[Sam Miller III]

The red and white dive flag is a "recognized" flag of recreational diving. It does not and never did have an official universal official flag status.

According to my dive flag file which measures about 2 feet thick the dive red & white dive flag was universally accepted by all divers in all the world's diving oriented countries including your own Scotland. It is recognized all this occurred well over 50 years ago, actually closer to 55 years ago. I suspect long before you awareness and involvement in the diving world. It is also recognized that things change.

The USSR aka Russia was the only country that did not accept and use the red & white flag, since it was created in the middle of the cold war. The had their own unique flag. I suspect now with the demise of communism they accept the American created red & white flag as a symbol of recreational diving activity.

The Blue and white flag is an International recognized flag..

 

[Hickdive]

Sorry, no-one flies your red and white flag in Scotland or anywhere else in the UK even if you say they do.

 

[Rich Keller]

Outside of the US and US-dominated areas the red and white flag isn't really recognised by boaters.

However the Alpha flag is readily identifiable by boaters who bother to look it up in a nautical almanac or similar.

It has been my experience that the red & white flag isn't recognized much inside the US by boaters either. It is great that it is accepted worldwide by divers as long as a diver is piloting the boat. As bad as boaters knowledge of what a dive flag is, their knowledge of what a SMB is for is nonexistent. If you have a SMB and think sending one up is going to move boaters out of the area you are sadly mistaken and probably about to become chum.

 

[Pavao]

I think there's a big difference too, in recognizing what the flag is (it's related to diving) and what message it is passing (stay clear). I'm pretty sure there's a pretty big % of people related to any water activity, and many non divers as well, that recognize the flag as being related to diving, but have no clue what it actually means, and I wouldn't be surprised if as many as 50% of all divers do not know that info either, even though virtually 100% recognize the flat.

Working as a DM here in SFL, it is pretty common for us, dive boats, to chase away boats heading towards our flags, happens very frequently for the dive boats to rush and position itself between the flags and the approaching vessels, forcing them to steer clear. I think it is understandable (but not acceptable) if a boat does not see a flag, sometimes, if we are in the middle of picking up a group, a boat may head towards the flags, in this case we can't rush to block a boat, so we sound all kinds of horns, point/wave dive flags, frantically wave arms, jump up and down like it's the end of the world, what amazes me is that they look at you (sometimes it's very close) but do absolutely NOTHING, not steer, not reduce speed, not calling you in the radio, NOTHING, they just look at you and keep on going. How can you see someone waving frantically at you and do nothing???

 

[Sam Miller III]

Being a prominent figure in my community, former Deputy Sheriff, former Master Police Officer, current Firefighter, current EMT for local EMS, Dive Shop Owner, Instructor Trainer, Public Safety Diving Instructor, Under Water Criminal Investigator Instructor, etc., I take it upon myself to educate as many people as I can here in my area. Not only on Scuba Diving, but also on the impact (good impact) divers have in local waters. You are completely right, there are so many people that use our local waters and have no clue what a dive flag is. Being a former Law Enforcement Officer in our area, affords me the opportunity to alert and notify our local wildlife officers (boat patrol) and local deputies to the importance of educating the community. We also have a Coast Guard reserve unit on our local lake that does boating classes that we at Lake Hickory Scuba Center assist by teaching non divers what the flag is all about. I would say be proactive and introduce the flag topic into your other forums. It can only help. We stress that here in North Carolina it is state law that any public waters a flag must be flown while divers are in the water.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What an impressive resume (CV.) Certainly have served your community in many capacities and now directing your efforts toward diving safety and promotion of the divers flag. I applaud you for your many efforts and community service.

It is interesting the lack of history with in the diving fraternity. The dive flag and it's many interpretations is a classic example. Many years ago, I suspect before you were born and possibly before you became a "diver" many individuals from the then active dive communities of the US struggled to design and develop a symbol of recreational diving.

It was proposed that the divers flag would be 4 units high by 5 units wide with a one unit diagonal stripe from upper attachment point to the lower portion of the flag. I notice that the flag in the video does not confirm to this configuration.

FYI the original color of the flag was not red! It's color was "international (aka Neon) orange. The manufactures had difficulty in producing international orange so after a few years settled on plain ole red. I happen to have saved all these good years one of the few remaining international orange flags.

There is an Ohio based organization the "Legends of diving" which you might to google and enjoy reading some of the articles, especially "The dive flag-the genesis" and for a bit of history perhaps "Skin Diver magazine," "The Sea Sabres signaling system" or for a peek in to the very beginning of recreational diving "You can't go home again,"

I am some what publicity shy, like you I prefer my deeds to speak for themselves. Should you like to know a little about my back ground my I suggest that go to the thread "Passings" Art Pender -King of Sling, or to discover a little about early diving I would suggest the Southern California thread on Harry Wham, which is an ongoing mystery and will no doubt have several additional postings.

Last I would suggest that you might want to review the "Public safety divers" thread and the 2014 SLO S&R divcon
.I suspect if you would contact Chuck Rawlinson that he would send you a free copy of the proceedings. Unbelievable amounts of information is contained in the 60 to 70 pages of that document.

Good luck and keep up the good work

SDM

 

[Diver0001]

A very short history

The red and white dive flag was proposed by Ted Nixon in the September 1957 issue of Skin Diver magazine as a warning symbol of recreational diving activities. After much discussion by respondents from through out the US and the world it was universally accepted as the symbol of recreational diving about a year later. The divers flag first appeared in the upper right hand corner of the cover of SDM March 1959 issue.

Almost immediately dive flag posters began appearing on boat docks, and divers began displaying the "flag" while diving.
All went well until approximately four years later on September 22, 1962 when Darrell Toso was struck and injured while displaying the flag from his boat while engaged in diving at Long Point Catalina Island.

I was picked from the small but diving active SoCal SCUBA Instructional world and anointed as an "Expert witness" for the prosecution. It was an awesome responsibility, the legality of the flag had never been tested in a court of law; If the case was lost the flag had no legality, but the prosecution prevailed and this one case in a Long Beach court established the legality of the red and white flag and identified the responsibilities for divers who displayed the flag from that time forward.

I documented the proceeding of the Toso/Burns trial in a two part article titled "Diving accident leads to legal action." in the now defunct LA County Underwater News

Almost immediately I and others recognized the impact of the trial was national or even international in scope rather than local and I should have published the article in Skin Diver magazine (SDM.) I was contacted by Jim Auxier, the founder of SDM and asked if I would consider being SDM's first guest editor and write an editorial on the diver's flag. It was a huge honor and of course I accepted. My guest editorial "Sign post to safety" appeared in the February 1966 issued of SDM.

Perhaps it was the timing perhaps it was the impact of the article but the manufacture of dive flags and dive jewelry suddenly appeared. As I suggested in the editorial displaying of dive flags on about every flat surface became popular.

About a year later I was contacted by Chapman's to authored a description and suggested use of the flag for incorporation in to Chapman's Small boat handling book. Any resemblance to my submission and the published article is purely coincidental
.
It is once again time for dive flag posters to appear on boat docks to educate the boating enthusiast.

The life you save my be your own

SDM

The fact is, that this information was disseminated among divers but not among other water-sporters.

It's kind of like deciding that there is a new offside rule in soccer but only telling the referees and the goal keepers. The other 20 people on the field still don't know.

When I learned to dive, we were told (with good reason) to put the dive flag as far as possible *away* from where we were diving because the boats would all go over to check it out and therefore they would stay out of the dive site. Even today, wind surfers commonly use them (and DSMB's) as obstacles for a slalom.

Where I live, I more often see the red and white dive flag used to *attract* attention (ie, during courses to attract curious by-standers who may become potential new students or as decorations for tanks or back windows of cars). I still have severe doubts as to how many boaters and other recreational water sporters understand the meaning of this flag.

The alpha flag (the blue and white one) is the only one that boaters seem to universally understand. In the Netherlands, they'll even erect alpha flags on shore (not on a vessel) near popular dive sites.

R..

 

[tedshark]

Maybe you could start the topic on those boating forums Bridge the gap.

I did on iboats.

 

[Hickdive]

A Flag Recognition Publicity - British Sub-Aqua Club