History of 18m depth limit?

[hammet]

That being said, there are dive ops out there that won't let you dive deeper than 60' with just OW certification.
Hence the reason I ended up taking AOW about three years ago, despite being an OW diver since the eighties and having quite a few dives below the 60' mark.

 

[dmaziuk]

Over in them chocolate-making countries the limit is 60. Except it's in metric:
Татьяна on Instagram: “И очередной результат этого года (в отличие от прошлого, он дает подвести какие-то итоге) - мой третий дайвинг-уровень. Все 60 м теперь…”

 

[Rollin]

This is the card of a Russian dive master, maybe even with a deep diving speciality.

In the real chocolate making territory Belgium, we have similar limits. With 4 stars, you don't even have a limit anymore.

 

[abnfrog]

I remember in the early 80s asking someone high up in the agency why 130 ft was the sport limit and why 60 was recommended till you got more skills what was said was at 130 ft ( 4 ata of nitrogen ) every one is affected to a degree of nitrogen narcosis that made more sense than an arbitrary number just thought up ....

 

[dmaziuk]

This is the card of a Russian dive master, maybe even with a deep diving speciality.

In the real chocolate making territory Belgium, we have similar limits. With 4 stars, you don't even have a limit anymore.

It's a card of a (late) "level 3" OW diver. The certifying agency is French and although my French is non-existing, I believe it says "unsupervised", not "master".

 

[Efka76]

I'll ignore your snark.

Part of the problem here is semantics. Let's distinguish between certification, qualification, license, training, and recommendation. Those words are used by different people and agencies in different ways.
I assume you agree that the accepted depth limit for recreational scuba diving is 130 ft. The OW certification ONLY says you passed an OW class in recreational diving....it is not a certification to a certain depth, it is an introductory recreational certification (130 ft) with an associated recommendation of 60 ft. maximum depth. Here is what PADI says, for example, on their website (Become a Certified Scuba Diver FAQs | PADI):
How deep do you go?
With the necessary training and experience, the limit for recreational scuba diving is 40 metres/130 feet.
Note it does NOT say "with the necessary certification, the limit...." because you already have the certification...OW. The point of the AOW and the Deep cards is to document the additional training, which is all a certification does; it documents the training that was taken. It is not a license.
The Encyclopedia of Recreational Diving says "Newly certified Advanced Open Water divers are qualified to dive deeper and in somewhat more challenging conditions than Open Water Divers." Note that it distinguishes between the certification (getting an AOW card) and the qualification that you are now trained to dive a little deeper.

There used to be a question on the PADI OW Final Exam that went something like this: "What is the depth limit for a recreational scuba diver?" The possible answers were 40 ft, 60 ft, 100 ft, 130 ft. Almost everybody got it wrong, answering "60 ft." The correct answer was "130 ft." I wish I could find a copy of that old exam but I don't seem to have it anymore.

Now, I suspect you are prepared to argue with and disbelieve anything I've said.
So why don't you contact PADI and get your own answer and present it here? You might want to pose your question as: "What is the depth to which an OW diver is certified, as opposed to the recommended maximum dive depth of 60 ft?"

As I expected you can not provide any official source that PADI OW certifies diver to dive up to 130 ft. Yes, I perfectly know that recreational diving limit is 130 ft or 40 m. but that was not my question. PADI very clearly says that OW certification holders are trained up to 60 ft or 18 m depth. This means that PADI OW diver limit is 60 ft (18 m.) How can you document additional training.... take additional courses like AOWD and Deep. I really disliked your previous post as you mentioned that my post is "satire". It is really sad that people who are "Master Instructors" with huge experience do not know current standards and try to discredit other SB members by laughing from their post. In your long post you wrote a lot of explanations, even cited old PADI OW exam but you still do not distinguish recreational diving limit from PADI OW limits. As I mentioned before, next time read current PADI books, refresh your memory and do not argue over things that your do not know or understand 100%. I think that you received a good training lesson.

 

[rsingler]

From the PADI Instructors Manual, under Open Water Dives, pg 26:
"3. Don't exceed the maximum depth specified in course instructor guides.
a. Absolute maximum is 40 meters/130 feet."

It thus follows that you are certified to the maximum recreational depth. You are trained to whatever maximum depth you were trained. Other limits are imposed by PADI during training, such as the 60 foot limit which we keep returning to.

 

[Efka76]

From the PADI Instructors Manual, under Open Water Dives, pg 26:
"3. Don't exceed the maximum depth specified in course instructor guides.
a. Absolute maximum is 40 meters/130 feet."

In PADI OW training students are trained up to 18 m depth. It automatically presumes that you should not exceed this depth during your training. There is a logical contradiction in PADI standard if instructor can take student up to 40 m. depth and certify / train him up to 18 m depth. I am not instructor and do not have your manual but I assume that it covers not only OW training but AOW and specialties as well. In this case that makes sense as it includes additional training up to 40 m.

 

[Storker]

Over in them chocolate-making countries the limit is 60. Except it's in metric:
Татьяна on Instagram: “И очередной результат этого года (в отличие от прошлого, он дает подвести какие-то итоге) - мой третий дайвинг-уровень. Все 60 м теперь…”

1. ANMP is an instructors' association, not a normal certifying agency. Association nationale des moniteurs de plongée - Wikipedia
2. That's even hairier than CMAS' 3* cert, which is valid down to 56m (1.4 bar pPO2 on air)
3. It's the Swiss and the Belgians, not the French, who are famous for their chocolate

 

[tursiops]

I really disliked your previous post as you mentioned that my post is "satire". It is really sad that people who are "Master Instructors" with huge experience do not know current standards and try to discredit other SB members by laughing from their post.

i am sorry I upset you. I called it satire not because I was laughing, but because I couldn't believe someone would write so many wrong things in one post.