Mr Chattertons Self Reliance Article...

[danvolker]

This is, hands down, the dumbest post I've ever read on scubaboard. Nothing your opponent has posted suggests "Rambo" and nothing about any GUE dive teams I've ever seen or heard of (despite my respect for their dedication to skills and gear configuration) would entitle them to be compared to a SEAL team.

If there were a medal for such things, I would award it now.

And would you happen to have seen this on SHADOW DIVERS? The read is not so unlike that of Rambo.. :

[h=3]From The New Yorker[/h]
Deep-wreck divers are used to operating
with almost no headroom and in zero visibility, navigating by touch alone; it is
a compliment to be told "When you die, no one will ever find your body." Despite
the dangers, wreck divers are typically weekend warriors, men who leave families
and jobs behind to test themselves at two hundred feet down. Kurson's exciting
account centers on two divers, John Chatterton and Robert Kohler, who in 1991
found an unidentified U-boat embedded in the ocean floor off the coast of New
Jersey. The task of identifying it leads them to Germany, Washington, D.C., and
the darkest corners of the submarine itself. Some of the most haunting moments
occur on land, as when the divers research the lives of the doomed German
sailors whose bones they swim among. Once underwater, Kurson's adrenalized prose
sweeps you along in a tale of average-guy adventure.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

And would you happen to have seen this on SHADOW DIVERS? The read is not so unlike that of Rambo.. :

From The New Yorker


Deep-wreck divers are used to operating
with almost no headroom and in zero visibility, navigating by touch alone; it is
a compliment to be told "When you die, no one will ever find your body." Despite
the dangers, wreck divers are typically weekend warriors, men who leave families
and jobs behind to test themselves at two hundred feet down. Kurson's exciting
account centers on two divers, John Chatterton and Robert Kohler, who in 1991
found an unidentified U-boat embedded in the ocean floor off the coast of New
Jersey. The task of identifying it leads them to Germany, Washington, D.C., and
the darkest corners of the submarine itself. Some of the most haunting moments
occur on land, as when the divers research the lives of the doomed German
sailors whose bones they swim among. Once underwater, Kurson's adrenalized prose
sweeps you along in a tale of average-guy adventure.

It's a great read ... but nothing in the book suggests that either John or Richie (not Robert) act like Rambo ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[danvolker]

It's a great read ... but nothing in the book suggests that either John or Richie (not Robert) act like Rambo ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Solo, death defying diving missions...deaths where the bodies will be lost to the world forever....testing the limits of human exploration, again, with many solo deaths....Place this in an "Action Thriller" genre not so far from Rambo.

 

[Dr. Lecter]

And would you happen to have seen this on SHADOW DIVERS? The read is not so unlike that of Rambo.. :

From The New Yorker


Deep-wreck divers are used to operating
with almost no headroom and in zero visibility, navigating by touch alone; it is
a compliment to be told "When you die, no one will ever find your body." Despite
the dangers, wreck divers are typically weekend warriors, men who leave families
and jobs behind to test themselves at two hundred feet down. Kurson's exciting
account centers on two divers, John Chatterton and Robert Kohler, who in 1991
found an unidentified U-boat embedded in the ocean floor off the coast of New
Jersey. The task of identifying it leads them to Germany, Washington, D.C., and
the darkest corners of the submarine itself. Some of the most haunting moments
occur on land, as when the divers research the lives of the doomed German
sailors whose bones they swim among. Once underwater, Kurson's adrenalized prose
sweeps you along in a tale of average-guy adventure.

As I mentioned in a slightly different context, some of your posts about this topic enlighten the reader more about what's in your head than they do about the subject matter of those posts. This is one of them.

 

[ScubaSteve]

Sorry but all this talk of Rambo and Seal 6 is just complete nonsense.

Spoiler

 

[danvolker]

As I mentioned in a slightly different context, some of your posts about this topic enlighten the reader more about what's in your head than they do about the subject matter of those posts. This is one of them.

I suppose it may....If what you are saying is this gives people an insight into some of what I was thinking about, when I begain referring to the Chatteron style of diving as Rambo Diving.
The place where it is a poor analogy, is where Rambo WOULD attempt to help a buddy ( even though he does not plan on them or need them) --and Chetterton devoted considerable time in explaining why he would fight the buddy off, if the buddy desired air...Rambo would not have done that. So my apologies to Rambo author, David Morrell.

---------- Post added February 15th, 2013 at 02:29 PM ----------

Sorry but all this talk of Rambo and Seal 6 is just complete nonsense.

Spoiler

Sorry, it was meant to infuse some humour. It was certainly not meant to imply anything litteral.

Some powerful leaders are said to have a "godlike presence"....when this is said, it is not meant to be litteral eiither.

SEAL TEAMS are trained at levels far beyond anything we have in diving. They represent an example of what can be acheived by the highest order of training and team work.
They are the ULTIMATE TEAMS.

 

[GShockey]

Dan, that's why I (and many others) do not dive with a manifold - to not ever lose all the gas due to a failure.
If we knock off a valve, 1st stage, reg, etc., we switch to our own reserve and the dive ends.
So the reserve is primarily MINE, not my buddies
If the same thing happens to the buddy, he switches to HIS reserve.
That's the basic, most simple and the quickesst process and that's how it works best.
I would expect everyone to plan accordingly and not take any shortcuts in the process. That means first and foremost, everyone carries a reserve sufficient for his own needs throughout the dive. And of course one will also make sure that the gas planning includes gas matching to make sure the reserve is sufficient for the other team members.
Because, if for some reason this procedure does not work, we will of course air-share as trained and the reserves would again be sufficient to air-share with another team member until the end of the dive.
But then again, I can understand that with sophisticated dives air-sharing is absolutely not the preferred way of solving an OOA situation. And possibly it is not one that will work well under some circumstances and be outright dangerous.

I don't see anything wrong with this approach and I don't see it contradicting basic DIR principles. Well, maybe apart from the question of a manifold maybe...

Oliver

I am afraid that your post demonstrates a misunderstanding of how a isolation manifold works. Moreover, sharing gas at 200' is no more difficult for trained divers than sharing gas at 20'. Yes, you go through more gas with each breath, but there is nothing else really different about it. The concept of minimum gas actually provides for two divers to share gas from the maximum depth of their dive to the next available gas source and doing this from say, 200' to 70' is something we require our T2 divers to be able to do. I would argue that it is probably easier to go from 200' to 70' sharing gas than it would be to go from 70' to the surface. Doing this from recreational depths to the surface is something that we require our Fundamentals graduates to be able to do. And they have to demonstrate they can do it. By the time these divers graduate to deeper depths, it is just a skill set that they have built up over training, practise and experience. The gas emergency lasts about 2 seconds, or as long as it takes me to donate my primary regulator to you. The rest is just house keeping and taking care of business. I should point out also that because of the degree of planning ,etc., we practise, "running out of gas" is something that I have never actually heard of happening with a GUE team. A momentary interruption in gas supply while doing a gas switch or something like that is more likely but once that problem was resolved I would expect the team to be back on their own gas supplies and either continuing the dive, or going home.

I see a significant misunderstanding between many of the posters here. I see hypothetical situations being created that call for drastic measures but the reality is that problems are seldom the result of a single, individual act are are instead a series of issues that have been handled improperly, leading to further problems. The better path is to identify and recognize that this happens and resolve the problem at the initial stages before it becomes insurmountable and unsolvable. I believe that this requires training and skill that is supported by practise and experience. It is my belief that having a "spare brain" around in problem solving exercise is probably the best thing you can have to resolve your issues.

From my perspective, technical diving is not an adrenalin sport. It is simply a "tool" that allows us to do something like exploration or research, etc. In this case, the skills etc., that require us to be able to do this diving safely are simply hammers and shovels in our tool box. The point of the dive is to actually accomplish something and these skills are just necessary for us to be able to accomplish that something. Hence, for most of us, the diving part is necessary but secondary to the task at hand. I enjoy the smooth performance of a technical training dive as much as the next person because it provides a feeling of competence and confidence however, I never lose sight of the fact that the dive itself for me is either a training dive designed to keep my skills sharp or is secondary to my agenda. Because of this, adrenalin has no place in my diving.

I am not anything really special in this respect and I am sure you would find the same sentiment voiced by many of my peer group. I am just a GUE trained diver that believes strongly in our approach to diving to the point that I have dedicated a good deal of time and energy to being able to share this with others. This is just something that can be learned and built up through establishing competence and confidence in the water that is supported by training and practise. I am just a guy who likes diving. I particularly like the kind of diving that takes me to places most people don't go but I am no Rambo and knowing and diving with some SEALS's I am not them either.


I would suggest that readers of this thread keep in mind that we are all amateurs when we are doing these types of dives. There is no need for a military "acceptable casualty rate" and we aren't doing this to save lives. We are diving to have fun and recreate in a world that most never get to see. For me, this means doing everything I can to make sure my team always comes home from our recreation and this to me means having the right training, skill, and experience for any dive.

best,

Guy

 

[drrich2]

Question for Howard (though others may have input, Howard was on the boat, and knows Chatterton):

Chatterton related a pair of (seasoned, I take it) deep divers were on the private boat out of Miami, diving OC Trimix, to do an exploratory deep dive, and hadn't dove together before but would be for this dive. There did a pre-dive check with each other, identifying alternate air sources in case of trouble.

This is the way a lot of us were taught to approach a dive.

IIRC, Chatterton was a bit amazed & regarded their approach as unrealistic. I suspect this is part of what is seen is antagonistic on Chatterton's part.

Now, maybe the reasoning is that doing confined space deep exploratory dives puts you in a situation where the likelihood of your buddy intervening if you have a severe gas loss is compromised to the point that you'd better have your own redundant air source. The 'reef diver' equivalent would be a solo equipped diver saying my redundant air source is a pony bottle with an independent reg., not my buddy's extra gas.

If that's the case, then maybe Chatterton didn't intend to 'diss' the team approach to deep diving, but rather point out the dangers of over-reliance on it for some types of dives.

Perhaps Chatterton's response to that situation is greater self-sufficiency, and a DIR team's approach would be greater team sufficiency; either is an attempt to prepare for greater risk, though the emphasis is very different.

Is my speculation on target, or is the truth something else?

Thanks.

 

[nakatomi]

I am afraid that your post demonstrates a misunderstanding of how a isolation manifold works. Moreover, sharing gas at 200' is no more difficult for trained divers than sharing gas at 20'.

Guy, about the manifold and isolator. What makes you think I would not know how a manifold with an isolator works? I dove a D.I.R. setup for years. My thought is, at 200', a full-blown free-flow or major leak will empty your back-gas in a matter of seconds, not minutes. So enough bail-out gas or a buddy is definitely needed, at least in my opinion. That said, a self-sufficient diver might just prefer to dive something else without a manifold and an open isolator.
Speaking of the manifold, that of course (and the isolator) is a single point of failure in itself. Probably not so relevant in open water, but in the context of penetration dives on the Andrea Doria, it might be something to worry about.

Now a word about the air-sharing "fantasies". OOA scenarios are not hypothetical at all, they happen all the time. As you know it is absolutely not uncommon for people to suddenly become "OOA", meaning their regulator stops delivering gas. Of course there will be gas at hand, but that's not the point. The point being, breathing is temporarily not possible. There are of course many possible causes for that to happen and more often than not the cause can be fixed immediately. And since we always plan for a workaround , there will be one. Now I have to admit it has happened to me and actually I even know several GUE tech trained divers that also went "OOA" so it is not hypothetical at all.
But, and this is the point I was making and maybe John was driving at it as well, you don't want your buddy to come to you for gas in situations like this. You want him to avoid these situations in the first place, if they happen, you want him to fix them on his own. If he has problems with any of this, this type of diving is not for him. Oh, and of course not "running out of gas" should be the easiest task for anyone to solve so it's not too much to ask for either.

By the way, did you even look at the video John posted in the blog? Do you think air-sharing is a feasible option in the passages he dove? Do you even think a team of divers going in there is an option?

Just a little word about GUE and DIR, I have absolutely no axe to grind. If that approach works well for you, that's perfectly fine and I can see many good things about it. But maybe you should try to accept that different approaches might just work better for someone else.

Oliver

 

[danvolker]

Guy, about the manifold and isolator. What makes you think I would not know how a manifold with an isolator works? I dove a D.I.R. setup for years. My thought is, at 200', a full-blown free-flow or major leak will empty your back-gas in a matter of seconds, not minutes. So enough bail-out gas or a buddy is definitely needed, at least in my opinion. That said, a self-sufficient diver might just prefer to dive something else without a manifold and an open isolator.
Speaking of the manifold, that of course (and the isolator) is a single point of failure in itself. Probably not so relevant in open water, but in the context of penetration dives on the Andrea Doria, it might be something to worry about.

Now a word about the air-sharing "fantasies". OOA scenarios are not hypothetical at all, they happen all the time. As you know it is absolutely not uncommon for people to suddenly become "OOA", meaning their regulator stops delivering gas. Of course there will be gas at hand, but that's not the point. The point being, breathing is temporarily not possible. There are of course many possible causes for that to happen and more often than not the cause can be fixed immediately. And since we always plan for a workaround , there will be one. Now I have to admit it has happened to me and actually I even know several GUE tech trained divers that also went "OOA" so it is not hypothetical at all.
But, and this is the point I was making and maybe John was driving at it as well, you don't want your buddy to come to you for gas in situations like this. You want him to avoid these situations in the first place, if they happen, you want him to fix them on his own. If he has problems with any of this, this type of diving is not for him. Oh, and of course not "running out of gas" should be the easiest task for anyone to solve so it's not too much to ask for either.

By the way, did you even look at the video John posted in the blog? Do you think air-sharing is a feasible option in the passages he dove? Do you even think a team of divers going in there is an option?

Just a little word about GUE and DIR, I have absolutely no axe to grind. If that approach works well for you, that's perfectly fine and I can see many good things about it. But maybe you should try to accept that different approaches might just work better for someone else.

Oliver

I look forward to hearing what Guy has to say on this, but I would answer about how I would have seen this when diving with George Irvine or Bill Mee....
One thing you see is constant silting by Chatterton in the sub video Shadow Diver on the U869 narrated by John Chatterton - YouTube or the Andrea Doria video.
There is only the POV style camera angle with no other diver in sight, so it is hard to see if this is the result of the ceiling and virtual floor( due to the junk lying all over the floor) being so tight that it actually had Chatterton rubbing both top and bottom most of the time, or if it was just poor bouyancy control and lack of trim-----
-----remember, back around 1991, bouyancy and trim were not as perfected among cave divers as it was even 6 years later, and was largely unknown (by today's understanding of it) in wreck diving.

It could very well be that the constant threat of siltouts, was from Chatterton and the others on the dive, crawling along like Billy Goats--and while effective for digging in the mud and rubble, it was a great way to destroy the ability to see.

He does say in the sub video, that they are constantly rubbing their bellies on the floor. My guess is that a present day team like JJ and Guy, or any of the top exploration divers in the GUE, would not be touching top or bottom, and not kicking up the non-stop silting you see in the video---this being perhaps the greatest threat of the dive--drive visibility to zero, and lose sight of wires and snags, etc.

But without seeing another diver in the sub on camera, it is not really fair to say..... I have been in a WWII American Sub( at a dock and not sunken, and while tight, if I was penetrating it underwater with George and Bill, we would not be rubbing both top and bottom. The issue would be restrictions where cables and junk was narrowing the already small passageway--and whether you could get through it cleanly, or whether you would have to be contacting it-- and silting by doing so.

Since Chatterton says in the beginning of the sub video, that 2 had died not long before on this sub, and one very recently, it was clear the planning was poor for diving this submarine, and he did not offer any lessons learned from the deaths--if anything, this may have added intrigue to the story line. I see it as unfortunate that a more honest appraisal of the sub penetration has not been offered.