Info Diving and Seamanship

[Akimbo]

... Lesson: Absolutely don't skimp on critical hardware. Even more than a regulator or other dive gear, your life actually does depend on it and it would be a slow torturous ordeal out in open ocean with no dry land to step on if any of that stuff gives at the worst possible time...

Plastic hull fittings are scary. With the price of Bronze today do you see many stainless Thru-Hulls and Seacocks?

Everyone went through basic Damage Control and firefighting schools in the Navy. There were lockers scattered around the ship stocked with conical wooden plugs, timber, wedges, and gas engine pumps with hoses. How common is it for small boats to carry Damage Control Plugs?

After this story I think I would want them aboard!

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Plastic hull fittings are scary. With the price of Bronze today do you see many stainless Thru-Hulls and Seacocks?

Everyone went through basic Damage Control and firefighting schools in the Navy. There were lockers scattered around the ship stocked with conical wooden plugs, timber, wedges, and gas engine pumps with hoses. How common is it for small boats to carry Damage Control Plugs?

After this story I think I would want them aboard!

Bronze is the way to go. I wouldn't trust stainless even if they made them (which I don't recall seeing anything like that in stainless) probably because of the crevice corrosion factor.
Bronze turns green or dark red brown but will usually be telling of problems.
I did see a bronze prop on a boat that had a couple blades badly eaten away (while diving). I recommended to the cusomer they haul right away. After we got it on the hard we tested the prop to see if it was repairable. It had no "ring" to it when tapped so that meant that the metal was shot - $1000 prop!. The boat was a 42' fly bridge sport fisher twin screw power boat that was a lean sale resulting from a repo. The new guy didn't know what he bought, but for $7K it was worth the chance. The boat had zero zincs on it when I first inspected it, and for who knows how long?
Even bronze will give up if not zinced.

 

[Akimbo]

Perhaps unfairly, my initial reaction to seeing boat diving specialty courses was "Good grief, another merit badge rip-off". I see that SSI, PADI, and SDI offer one. The outlines sound awfully limited, but I am probably jaded.

The question to grads and instructors is are any of them worth taking or are you better off taking a boating safety course?

 

[Searcaigh]

On the subject of leaks ….

Back in the 80s the company I was working for had leased a DSV (called DP) with a Norwegian crew, all the dive crew however were a mixture of Brits and colonials. After a year the company bought purchased a DSV (called BP, with a helipad ) and DP was no longer used. The Norwegian owners however decided to keep it docked at Milford Haven in Wales.

We had to bring our new DSV in for gas, and as the pilot manoeuvred BP in between the harbour entrance we noticed that DP was sitting pretty low in the water inside the harbour.

The owners had left a skeleton crew of two in charge and they usually spent the evenings in one of the local pubs. There was an alarm system warning of water in the bilge, and a cancel button in the galley. After DP sank when the crew were in the pub, the investigators apparently found the cancel button gaffer taped down so that it did not make any noise resulting in the boat sinking

I never ever found out what happened to it as the next time we had to take on gas we were in Aberdeen, and I have never been back to Milford Haven.

 

[Hickdive]

I
Can you explain IALA regions? Please tell me it has nothing to do with driving on the left side!

Note quite, but the International Association of Lighthouse Authorities (IALA) tried to standardise buoyage. In the Americas and parts of the far east buoyage tended to work correctly for vessels leaving port i.e. heading out the port buoys would be to port of the vessels and starboard on the starboard. However in Europe buoyage is typically correct for vessels heading into port.

After much argument no-one could settle which was correct and no-one was going to change so IALA created two regions IALA A and IALA B and charts should be marked with the correct region so that mariners know what to expect and keep inside channels. The Americas, Caribbean, Philippines and much of Asia is IALA B, correctly sided for vessels leaving port and the rest of the world is typically IALA A i.e. correctly sided for vessels entering port.

 

[hroark2112]

I was on submarines. The pointy end was the stern

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Perhaps unfairly, my initial reaction to seeing boat diving specialty courses was “Good grief, another merit badge rip-off”. I see that SSI, PADI, and SDI offer one. The outlines sound awfully limited, but I am probably jaded.

The question to grads and instructors is are any of them worth taking or are you better off taking a boating safety course?

I never could figure out why they have those courses other than to tap your wallet.
My 5th dive out of OW was on the Cypress Point out of Monterey.
We did a 90' dive outside of Lobos then went to two other spots, on tables I might add. I never had so much fun. They didn't ask for any "boat diver" specialty or any other nonsense. We just payed attention to the briefing and did what they told us - not rocket science.

Anybody who gets a boat larger than say a small inflatable just for going a few miles on a nice day might want to consider getting the book "Chapman's Piloting - Seamanship and Boat Handling" Elbert S. Maloney 63rd. edition
It's a handy reference to keep around.
I would read that cover to cover before I'd take a boat diving course from a recreational dive cert agency.

---------- Post added June 15th, 2014 at 12:19 PM ----------

BTW, if you want to know what NOT to do while boating just go to any lake on any given hot summer day and you'll get an eyefull!

 

[Akimbo]

...Anybody who gets a boat larger than say a small inflatable just for going a few miles on a nice day might want to consider getting the book "Chapman's Piloting - Seamanship and Boat Handling" Elbert S. Maloney 63rd. edition...

Agreed, Chapman Piloting & Seamanship has been "the standard" as long as I can remember.

 

[TMHeimer]

If you dive often from a non-charter private boat, whether you are captaining it or just there for the dives, it makes sense to me to take a boat safety course. I've heard that at times taking an agency specialty course may include boat safety stuff and stuff like anchoring, docking, etc. If such a course is only about the diving I can't see what you would learn that wasn't just logical and easily remembered after one's first charter experience.

 

[Rich Keller]

With all the talk about red & green lights and buoys no one mentioned "Red, Right, Returning". The Red buoys are always on your Right hand side when you are Returning to port. Just an add on to fire fighting, if you cannot put out a fire with two good size fire extinguishers the fire is out of your control and it is time to leave.