Never leave a diver behind

[Teamcasa]

Except for those people who like to jump off and swim around during the SI, or using other parts of the boat to exit on (back roll?) It just increases risk and is no longer fool proof. Though at entry and exit you could give the divers a braclet like a hospital deal with a barcode and save some money. You also get into the he came on twice and never left issue.

I've heard this before but the swimmer/snorkeler is not nearly as likely to be left behind as they are easily seen and rarely venture to far from the boat.

 

[ekremer]

You are right. I have not done any real studies of course, You could set up 2 readers one facing twords the exit direction (and the diver swipes there if he is exiting) and a sealed one at the dive ladder that they swipe when re-entering. It just doesn't seem as idiot proof to me. And there are the occasional back rolls.

The advantage to the whole boat, is if a diver somehow gets off the boat w/o being detected by the reader, as in it was totally overwhelmed by 20 divers working their way out. or he was pushed... or took a way off the boat that is not normally used but okayed by the captain, etc.

 

[Charlie99]

I've heard this before but the swimmer/snorkeler is not nearly as likely to be left behind as they are easily seen and rarely venture to far from the boat.

IIRC, in either the Lonergan/Australian incident or the Kelly's on the Bay/Florida incident the count was messed up by a couple of divers just approaching the boat. The DM counted them and passed up the count as being two people short. The Captain looked down and thought "Ahh. There's the two people we are missing".

That's the sort of reason that you need to have a couple of independent methods --- such as a head count + tank count + roll call. It's also the reason why you wait until the boat is in a static state before doing a final count ---- no divers approaching the boat, nobody hopped in for a swim, nobody moving from room to room on a large boat, etc.

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The whole discussion on RFID seems to miss the point that RFID is simply just another tag or token system. It is still prone to many of the errors of tag/token systems -- such as people forgetting to take them into the water, people forgetting to put them back; both of which cause enough false missing counts. Then when there really IS a missing diver, the DM is too prone to just assume that it's another false count. A good system has few false alarms.

Don't rely upon just one system for boats with more than 12 passengers.

 

[ekremer]

======================

The whole discussion on RFID seems to miss the point that RFID is simply just another tag or token system. It is still prone to many of the errors of tag/token systems -- such as people forgetting to take them into the water, people forgetting to put them back; both of which cause enough false missing counts. Then when there really IS a missing diver, the DM is too prone to just assume that it's another false count. A good system has few false alarms.

Don't rely upon just one system for boats with more than 12 passengers.

If the person forgets to take the RFID out with him then the DM would see a diver on board an empty boat and he can then manually mark that diver as missing. Then at the end of the dive that diver would have to be manually located.

Putting them back: In my idea they never leave the body and are constantly polled by the computer, if you mean bring them back. If it is lost in the dive then the system will report a missing diver and that diver would have to be manually verified and re-issued an id.

 

[Wookie]

The next and more important part of this discussion is the missing diver alert. If we could combine a RFID-like device with an alarm that works up to a couple miles or so, then we have a winner. I know that there are personel epirbs, but to have a charter boat invest $800 per, and have divers flood only 1 or 2 per trip is not reality. But a battery powered something or another that is waterproof with a couple of mile range for the missing diver, now, that is something I could invest in. We could add an underwater pinger like the kind used on ROV/AUV/Sidescans (in case the tether breaks) to find divers that aren't making it back to the boat (sorry to be a bit gruesome here, but it happened to me once) and we have an all-purpose tool that would be actually worth something to a charter operator. We don't need to send a signal to a satellite here, just a couple of miles. Now, we need to affix this device semi-permenantly to the diver (not their gear), like an ankle bracelet for convicted DUI offenders. Once locked on, it won't come off without the key. This would also solve those pesky man overboards in the middle of the night. As soon as the "missing diver" alarm goes off in the wheelhouse, the autopilot could be set to automatically execute a WILLIAMSON TURN or SCHARNOW TURN, kill the throttles at the right spot, and the Captain never has to leave the wheelhouse to pick up the man overboard. Keep it around $100 and I'll buy 30 of em tomorrow.

 

[Web Monkey]

Hmmm... hmmm... just contemplating how to use tokens better. My experience with boats that use them is that they don't work that well because their use depends on the divers, mostly...
Howzabout this:
To get off the boat you must hand your token to the DM (or rolltaker). When you get back on, you get it back from the DM. The DM must be out of tokens for the boat to move.
Rick

We attach DAN tokens to the divers and collect them when they return. This is in addition to a sign-in/out sheet that records name, signature, time and pressure.

Terry

 

[ekremer]

a quick thought on the RFID system. (when I get obsessed I can't stop lol) Computers go down. Especially when mixed with Water. If This happens a manual list of the tags would be important. They at that point could be used as a classic token. The list could be printed before the dive with several extra tags in case some had to be re-assigned.

Also another option would be a backup computer and a usb thumb driver that has a backup of the currently active tags. The drive would be plugged into the computer, the computer plugged into the readers and off we go.

With a boat full of readers if one goes down its not the end of the world.

 

[merxlin]

Am I the only one here who thinks that if you can't get a DM to do a proper roll call and head/tank count, making them become computer proficient is asking a bit much? I can see it now, the main computer goes down and only half the divers are accounted for. So the Dm runs into the galley/wheelhouse to get the back up memory, reboots the computer. Still not working. Pulls the back up lap top from the captain, loads all the info, then has to figure out who reboarded while he/she was doing all this. Oh and by the way divers, no 3rd dive cause now we are running late. Sorry, I just don't have the confidence in an electronic system that isn't just there for redundancy.

 

[ekremer]

LOL everything has kinks but your missed one point. The system would be status independent. It doesn't care that Diver X was in the water before it went down. When the system comes back up it has a record of all the tags that are active (the usb key just plug and play) it then polls all the recorders and sees whos here. Those that are there are green, those that are not when polled are red. Those that have a weak signal are yellow.

And if all else fails there would be the paper print out made before they left dock.

 

[DandyDon]

We attach DAN tokens to the divers and collect them when they return. This is in addition to a sign-in/out sheet that records name, signature, time and pressure.

Terry

I wish we could get all Ops to do that much.

Am I the only one here who thinks that if you can't get a DM to do a proper roll call and head/tank count, making them become computer proficient is asking a bit much? I can see it now, the main computer goes down and only half the divers are accounted for. So the Dm runs into the galley/wheelhouse to get the back up memory, reboots the computer. Still not working. Pulls the back up lap top from the captain, loads all the info, then has to figure out who reboarded while he/she was doing all this. Oh and by the way divers, no 3rd dive cause now we are running late. Sorry, I just don't have the confidence in an electronic system that isn't just there for redundancy.

Yep. And if we can't get all Ops to do as Terry described above, or what the Fling does - what are the chances of getting them to do that.

I love electronic toys, but I want answers that will get me back on every boat before it leaves.