Question Have any of you taken TDI's Advanced Wreck course?

[Dirt Pineapple]

Curious to hear what you thought of it, what shop you used and if you had previously taken a cave course.

 

[Astrobratt]

I took the course out of the John Chatterton Dive Center. I did my dives in Pompano Beach. It was a fantastic course, and if you love to explore wrecks like I do, I would highly recommend the course. The book is not great, but the course material was incredible; that depends greatly on the instructor.

We did a lot of blindfold drills; finding your way out of a wreck without vision with/or without a line is a trip. also, a lot of line laying. We also did blindfolded gas sharing following a line out of the wreck.

If your experience is anything like mine, it would be very valuable.

 

[Germie]

No, and I won't do it for myself. The reason is that I am already a full cave diver (and instructor), and when I did the cave diver course, there was no advanced wreck course. The cave diver course was the highest level you could get for penetration.
Then the course was written and divecenters said: or a cave diver or this course if you want to do advanced wreck penetration.
I have done tons of wreckpenetrations, and never thought my knowledge is not enough. (don't come with the you don't know you don't know as there is always a first person who writes a course and did not need it himself).

This said I don't think a wreck penetration course is a bad thing if you are not cave diver. And if you are a cave diver and think you need it, then there is also nothing wrong with taking this.

But I only think it is not usefull or needed for every diver. The same with for example the bailout ccr course. I already dove with 2 ccr's before the course was written or founded. So I already had figured out all the things myself (and talking to others who are using 2 ccr's).

The courses are there for the people who think they need them. But I hate it when divecenters or instructors thinks they need the divers money. And this is seen also quite a lot of times.

The only reason I can find to do a course I don't need is that I want to see how another instructor is teaching, so maybe learn things from them when teaching. But in most cases you don't need to pay for a whole course then and don't need to follow a whole course.

 

[lostsheep]

... if you had previously taken a cave course.

No, and I won't do it for myself. The reason is that I am already a full cave diver (and instructor), and when I did the cave diver course, there was no advanced wreck course. The cave diver course was the highest level you could get for penetration.
Then the course was written and divecenters said: or a cave diver or this course if you want to do advanced wreck penetration.
I have done tons of wreckpenetrations, and never thought my knowledge is not enough. (don't come with the you don't know you don't know as there is always a first person who writes a course and did not need it himself).

This said I don't think a wreck penetration course is a bad thing if you are not cave diver. And if you are a cave diver and think you need it, then there is also nothing wrong with taking this.

But I only think it is not usefull or needed for every diver. The same with for example the bailout ccr course. I already dove with 2 ccr's before the course was written or founded. So I already had figured out all the things myself (and talking to others who are using 2 ccr's).

The courses are there for the people who think they need them. But I hate it when divecenters or instructors thinks they need the divers money. And this is seen also quite a lot of times.

The only reason I can find to do a course I don't need is that I want to see how another instructor is teaching, so maybe learn things from them when teaching. But in most cases you don't need to pay for a whole course then and don't need to follow a whole course.

I had taken cave before advanced wreck.

@Germie , Interesting perspective with appropriate qualifiers thrown in but I don't completely agree.

If I was only going to take one, it would be cave as more of the course material crosses over but wrecks are not caves. Navigation is different and hazards are different, as such the techniques should be different too.

I took AW from "he who should not be named" and I'll admit that everything you have read here about his class is true. That said, it was one of the best classes I've ever had and a lot of the derided approaches have come into play since...more so than I thought they would. I am not a disciple but what I learned in that class had a strong influence on many of my practices today. FWIW, I also discarded a lot of what was taught and he was the only instructor I ever had who wouldn't berate me for doing so.

flame on...

 

[Jim Lapenta]

I took and became an advanced wreck instructor because I had no interest in cave.
And I heard a NAUI Tech Course Director who taught cave and wreck instructors say that wrecks are inherently more dangerous than caves.
His reasoning was that, in general, many caves have remained the same, with some small changes, for hundreds and even thousands of years. Wrecks can and do change with more regularity, sometimes overnight.
I've seen it happen firsthand in the Great Lakes. Wooden hulls that we had penetrated for years suddenly collapsed over a weekend. Ocean wrecks change as rust and currents eat away at them.
The Doria is doing this with increasing rapidity.
The Spiegel Grove, though sunk intentionally, was flipped upright by a hurricane.
In some cases, wrecks, because they seem/are smaller than cave systems, are approached with less respect because they become tourist attractions, and unscrupulous operators think it's just fine to lead people who have no business in them into spaces and passages without lines. Thus giving the impression that they are safe.
And when one of those people decides to do it on their own, they get the crapped scared out of them, or they end up dead.
It does depend on the instructor. As do all courses, tech especially.
Look for the instructor who regularly dives them. The last couple of years I was teaching, I stopped offering it because I wasn't able to dive them myself to the degree I felt necessary to keep everything up to snuff.
I also began to feel that mentally my head wasn't into taking students into them. Myself? No problem getting into tight spots and seeing what was there.