Do we need instructors?

[redacted]

While a little off the tread topic, I wonder what the economic price point would be on an scuba tank exchange vending similiar to propane exchanges at various hardware and lumber outlets would be?

Check out a tank #454 from bin #12 with your credit card, return tank #454 to bin 12. Don't return the same tank, you get billed for a tank replacement.

Sounds like a solution since the LDS's say they're subjected to a lot of liability and they don't make any money from fills anyway.

You could have say 5 operators serving all south Florida. Seems to be working ok for propane.

They say they don't make any money, yet this idea would just make it worse. Dive shops have a compressor so they can qualify as a "full service" dive shop and provide training and support their own gas needs. the problem is that they try to write off all their compressor related costs against the gas that they sell to customers who bring tanks in for a fill. If they sell 100 fills a month, that's still $500 to $800 more income than they would have had with the real cost delta being only the cost of power, maintenance, and filtration for those fills. The compressor, employee, and building were all going to be there anyway. If diver's with their own tanks started getting fills elsewhere, most shops would just be further in the red for their compressor costs.

 

[theduckguru]

I don't see how you could do Nitrox mixes. There is to wide a range. You can offer the standard 32 and 36 but what if someone wants 28? If you limit your product line to air21 only, you still have an issue with trained people doing the sales. With propane, a gas station attendant, Lowes employee, or whoever just takes one cylinder from a customer and replaces it with another. You can't do that with SCUBA without opening up a ton of problems. What if the renter sucks it down to zero? Now you need Vis before renting it again. What if the renter fills the tank on their own and oil ends up in it? What if they fill it with unclean air and return it as full? What if they take an air tank and dump Nitrox in it? Or Helium? Or propane? I have a hard enough time trusting a rental tank from a shop I'm familiar with let alone swinging by 7/11 and grabbing from a cage..

I don't believe you have experianced the new self serve propane vending. There are no employees doing the sales. Insert credit card, open door, remove propane, insert empty cylinder. No cylinder is ok too at a higher cost of course.

If you wanted nitrox 28, you'd have to go full service, nitrox30, no problem.

Set one up outside your LDS and no compressor to purchase or up keep, no salaries, no tank tests, 27/7 sales and no liability.

 

[Paladin]

I have experienced the self-service propane cages. Improperly maintained, dented and rusty tanks, short fills and bad valves are just a few of the problems. Picking up a propane tank such as these for your grill is one thing, trusting this kind of service for breathing air is another. Not for me, thank you. You could never be sure what you're getting.

 

[captain]

Back in the day when everyone was still figuring out how scuba worked and how the body reacted, then maybe instructors were few and far between. However...these days we have a plethora of brains and experienced people to help pass along their knowledge and experience along to others.

There are several organizations around that have established basic rules around how to dive safely. In fact, several nations with serious ocean-going forces have developed some really nice procedures and practices to deal with how the human body reacts to the ocean depths.

Why would you not want to take advantage of what they've learned?

Dive instruction has opened up a whole "economic" for thousands of people and provided a global platform for them to enjoy a great part of the world previously not known well 20-50 years ago.

If not for instructors and the repository of information they've acquired, we'd be still breathing out of old fire extinguisher tanks and wondering why we feel funny at 100' down.

Instructors are only a delivery method for the repository of information that would exist with or without them. I can access that repository in a number of ways and bypass the instructor.

 

[Paladin]

Actually, the effects of "Rapture of the Deep" have been known for 172 years, since the first hard hat divers sank beneath the surface using Augustus Seibe's rig. In 1899, Hans Meyer pinpointed the cause of RoR as the effect of increased nitrogen in the bloodstream. So, us old geezers who learned to dive back in the Dark Ages were quite aware of why we felt a little strange at 100 ft.

Personally, I never knew anybody who used a converted fire extinguisher. Everyone I dived with used Voit or Aqua-Lung regs and tanks. I did know a guy who used a modified USAF oxy bottle as a pony, though.

Contrary to what some "modern" divers might think, back then, we knew pretty much everything that today's divers know. Our training was just more intensive and comprehensive and we handled things with style!:vintagediver:

P.S.
Instructors were not the ones who figured it all out. It was men like Cousteau who did that.

 

[Thalassamania]

...
If not for instructors and the repository of information they've acquired, we'd be still breathing out of old fire extinguisher tanks and wondering why we feel funny at 100' down.

I hate to tell you, but I knew that long before I ever met a certified diving instructor, in fact, I knew that before there were any diving instructors, except at a few Universities and in LA.

 

[Uraluni]

I hate to tell you, but I knew that long before I ever met a certified diving instructor, in fact, I knew that before there were any diving instructors, except at a few Universities and in LA.

I don't deny your experience...However, instructors are was has made scuba into what it is today. I don't have to like it, you obviously don't like it... but it is what it is.

 

[Paladin]

Sorry to burst your bubble Uraluni, but instructors are not the ones who have made SCUBA what it is. The equipment manufacturers are the ones who have done that. The instructors and the agencies they represent have merely reacted to, and taken advantage of, the new technologies.

The basic principals of SCUBA have not changed since Cousteau's first dives back in the '40s. These principals are dictated by the laws of physics. Only the technology used to deal with these principals has changed.

A diver using the old-style equipment and methods can still as safe and competent as one using all the bells and whistles available today.:vintagediver:

 

[Thalassamania]

I don't deny your experience...However, instructors are was has made scuba into what it is today. I don't have to like it, you obviously don't like it... but it is what it is.

That is an interesting claim. Would you are to support with some logical argument or snippet of history? It really doesn't matter what I like, or what you like, let's address what happened and when. I know of no innovation in diving that was begun as part of a training program. I know of no individual who was a leader in the diving world by dint of his or her being an instructor. If you have other information, we'd all love to have a chance to read it and discuss it.

Oh, btw: what makes you think that what scuba is today is so good? What makes you think that it could not be significantly better? If one can demonstrate that there are serious things wrong with scuba today (e.g., kneeling skills and no gas management) shall we blame that sort of stupidity on the instructors who made scuba into what it is today?

 

[DCBC]

DCBC,
When I finally, got my first c-card, there was no pool work. I met the instructor at the lake, he had me take a written test, demonstrate my knowledge and skills, then issued my card. It was simple and painless. I paid him $50 and I was done.

To say that a mentor could be liable for any accident which might occur after a government card was issued would be like the person who taught him to drive would be liable for every accident he has on the road. I've taught a number of people to drive. Over the years since, some of them have had accidents but, under the law, the responsibility for those accidents rests on them, not me. Once a diver manages to pass the government test and gets a state c-card, all liability would be his own.

Yes, I suppose I was thinking about an accident that occurred during the training process. No card has been given, in-fact the mentor has put him/herself in a position of responsibility which may carry legal responsibility. The mentor/Instructor has (whether s/he realizes it or not) a standard of care based upon reasonableness (what should a reasonable and prudent person who instructs SCUBA diving do)? That's the issue here. A person who may not know the answer to these questions who has put themselves in such a position, takes on the responsibility of teaching the diver in a safe manner. It is for this reason why we carry liability insurance.