GUE (and other non-PADI) Open Water Standards for No-Deco Limits

[BlueTrin]

I think you are confused. You are supposed to bash PADI, not BSAC!

I didn’t say which agency he was

Can I say that the third guy who dashed away was PADI ? Does that make up for it ?

 

[dmaziuk]

So you meet a PADI diver who dives once a year, they don't remember anything from their OW course they took several years before... and people like you naturally assume that it's because nothing was covered in the course. The assumption is simply incorrect. The problem is with the divers, not the training that they were given (but have since forgotten.)

That's of course part of it, but my other point is that you remember what you need. If you don't dive to 40 m in cold dark muck and have no intention to, ever, then anyone bashing you or some training agency for your inability to plan and lead a group dive to the Titanic is full of it.

 

[eelnoraa]

By not blindly, I mean we were required to be aware of dive time and average depth. The table

The table number serve as the upper limit.of dive time at specific depth. I think you are right, that part is a blind trust based on supposed accumulated data.

What I was trying to say is the " let's splash and see what the computer says" was not the way taught in the class.

This is not the way the PADI OW course is supposed to be taught either. As an instructor for my fun job (scuba) and my real job (not scuba), I can confidently claim that students tend to forget things that are presented in class, learned for the quiz or exam, but then are not regularly reinforced. And this is the difference between training from PADI and from GUE (or similar agencies): many PADI students get certified and then do not dive regularly, so what they learned is not reinforced. GUE trainees, by nature, tend to dive more than the average PADI trainee.

But to suggest that a PADI student does not remember proper dive planning, so it must not have been taught in their class is illogical and incorrect.

I wasn't talking or comparing GUE against PADI at all. I don't where the assumption comes from. My post here never even mention PADI. In fact, I don't think we should turn this into agency vs agency, good diver vs bad diver, this kind of topics We are merely comparing ascent profile and strategy, tables.. .. the actual material of the class. Just FYI, I was also PADI trained up to AOW and Rescue. I had my share of PADI experience as a student.

 

[yle]

I wasn't talking or comparing GUE against PADI at all. I don't where the assumption comes from. My post here never even mention PADI.

No worries... the PADI & GUE assumption came from the title of the thread. The very first post, by the OP, seems to be contrasting the training of the two. Your first post was early in the thread, so when you mentioned the "blindly follow computer", I assumed that was referring to PADI training because I assumed it was not referring to GUE. And those were the only two agencies mentioned in the first few posts of the thread.

My point was simply that just because in experienced, or once-a-year, PADI divers do tend to just "follow their computer" doesn't mean they were specifically trained that way.

 

[yle]

That's of course part of it, but my other point is that you remember what you need. If you don't dive to 40 m in cold dark muck and have no intention to, ever, then anyone bashing you or some training agency for your inability to plan and lead a group dive to the Titanic is full of it.

Very true. And there are a fair number of PADI divers that dive every once in a while, on vacation, and are told by a dive guide "I'll set up your gear, and then you just follow me around underwater... you don't need to remember anything!"

And that's what they tend to do.

 

[diver42]

What are GUE and the other non-PADI open water classes teaching for no-deco limits now? I understand that PADI now teaches “follow your computer,” with or without the old tables as a backup.

What else?

So the agencies each have their own NDL tables now? I was told this past weekend that PADI only teaches tables on request, and computers are loaned out so students can learn to follow them.

 

[Storker]

So the agencies each have their own NDL tables now?

Maybe not every agency, but yeah, there are a bunch of different dive tables out there.

Off the top of my head, I know of US Navy tables, PADI RDP, BSAC-88, NAUI's tables, the Danish Sport Diving Federation's tables and the Norwegian Standard Diving Tables. GUE's and the Finnish Divers Federation's tables have been mentioned upthread. The French of course have their own tables, and there's of course the Swiss and German Buhlmann-based tables. Plus a few more.

History of decompression research and development - Wikipedia

 

[BlueTrin]

So the agencies each have their own NDL tables now? I was told this past weekend that PADI only teaches tables on request, and computers are loaned out so students can learn to follow them.

I did my PADI OW last year and was taught tables, never asked for it particularly.

However, we didn’t do a dive planning using tables before the practical dives.

 

[1atm]

So the agencies each have their own NDL tables now? I was told this past weekend that PADI only teaches tables on request, and computers are loaned out so students can learn to follow them.

Well, it's an improvement over the "just follow the guide" approach that was prevalent when I did my PADI OW. With those ops, none of the customers had computers, and nobody planned dives with tables or whatever. We just had mechanical depth gauge, no watch, and trust the dive master ...

 

[dmaziuk]

Very true. And there are a fair number of PADI divers that dive every once in a while, on vacation, and are told by a dive guide "I'll set up your gear, and then you just follow me around underwater... you don't need to remember anything!"

And that's what they tend to do.

Lucky me, I have not dived with that guide. I'd follow the guide in an unfamiliar place and some ops (not all) set up your gear, but IME there's always been a briefing with plan, signs, turn points etc. Nobody forces one to listen, of course, but jerks who ignore the brief and go "do their own thing" tend to miss the boat the next day.