SCUBA shop that will issue be an AOW card after a few days diving?

[Germie]

AOW is only 5 dives, so 2 days and you are ready. This is the easiest way. Tell them you want to do the easiest way and it will be no problem. Do it somewhere were they only do shoredives, this will reduce the price.
Officially an ow cert is already a 40m cert. Nobody tells you, but you can extend limits on your own, but yes, money must be earned by divecenters. So pay 250-300 bucks for 5 shoredives, and no discussions anymore.

Or print a card yourself from your now own founded agency which started 2 minutes ago. Photoshop, create a logo, put a picture on it, print and ready.

 

[Still Kicking]

In my humble opinion, it is much like scuba shops refusing to fill cylinders with VIP from competing shops or no sticker at all.

Then throwing the BS line that not VIPing the cylinder is against the law, or even against their insurance company's policies.

I was insured for over 20 years. There is no such thing as a 60 foot limit on open water divers, or a requirement for AOW to dive from a boat. There are unscrupulous dive shops who think that they need to screw the diver by making them get a VIP and an advanced card, and aren't honest enough to take the heat for the decision themselves.

On the other hand, is it responsible practice to take green OW divers to a dive site with no hard bottom (eg So Cal oil rigs, 300'+) and expect them to have the skills to handle that? Some boats used to.

AOW doesn't guarantee much but at least they had five more dives under supervision, hopefully enough to improve basic control of their buoyancy.

 

[boulderjohn]

Experience is a much better predictor of success.

Here is how the difference was explained to me.

Let's say shop A has the policy of requiring AOW for certain dives, and shop B has a policy of having sufficient experience. Each has a diver with poor skills perish on an advanced dive. Here is the comparison of what happens in the lawsuit.

• Shop A explains that they require AOW, and they confirmed that the diver had AOW. If the diver did not have the skills that the certification suggests, then it isn't their fault.
• Shop B explains that in their opinion, the diver had enough experience to do the dive. That is followed by a grilling on how they determined whether or not the diver's experience was sufficient. How did they determine the proper threshold of experience? How did they confirm that the diver met that threshold? (etc. etc. etc.)

 

[Still Kicking]

Here is how the difference was explained to me.

Let's say shop A has the policy of requiring AOW for certain dives, and shop B has a policy of having sufficient experience. Each has a diver with poor skills perish on an advanced dive. Here is the comparison of what happens in the lawsuit.

• Shop A explains that they require AOW, and they confirmed that the diver had AOW. If the diver did not have the skills that the certification suggests, then it isn't their fault.
• Shop B explains that in their opinion, the diver had enough experience to do the dive. That is followed by a grilling on how they determined whether or not the diver's experience was sufficient. How did they determine the proper threshold of experience? How did they confirm that the diver met that threshold? (etc. etc. etc.)

And no diver would ever fake a logbook ....

 

[tridacna]

Here is how the difference was explained to me.

Let's say shop A has the policy of requiring AOW for certain dives, and shop B has a policy of having sufficient experience. Each has a diver with poor skills perish on an advanced dive. Here is the comparison of what happens in the lawsuit.

• Shop A explains that they require AOW, and they confirmed that the diver had AOW. If the diver did not have the skills that the certification suggests, then it isn't their fault.
• Shop B explains that in their opinion, the diver had enough experience to do the dive. That is followed by a grilling on how they determined whether or not the diver's experience was sufficient. How did they determine the proper threshold of experience? How did they confirm that the diver met that threshold? (etc. etc. etc.)

Truth is that's a wishy washy fantasy defense strategy that will get destroyed by a PI attorney. An AOW diver can have 9 dives in total. Good luck wid dat. When I was last in Indo, the resort would not allow any diver without AOW descend past 60'. We had one guy with over 1,000 dives - had to have a special DM assigned to him if he wanted to go below 60'.

 

[Rob9876]

Is this whole "insurance is mitigated by only allowing divers with AOW on my boat" for real? Can anyone actually point to a document or lawsuit that justifies this? Or is it urban myth?

It wouldn't take a courtroom expert very long to confirm the notion that an AOW cert is anything but worthless. Experience is a much better predictor of success.

From the lawsuit and insurance postings I've read on here over the years, it seems like @Subfiend may be the most qualified to shed light on this issue.

 

[Outbound]

I was insured for over 20 years. There is no such thing as a 60 foot limit on open water divers, or a requirement for AOW to dive from a boat. There are unscrupulous dive shops who think that they need to screw the diver by making them get a VIP and an advanced card, and aren't honest enough to take the heat for the decision themselves.

From a legal perspective, I can't say whether or not a requirement to have an AOW cert would hold up in court if an accident were to happen. But I definitely know boats that require AOW for dives deeper than 60'. Unless you mean that there is no legal or insurance requirement, but instead it's a shop/boat policy.

 

[NauticalNick]

Would an ice diving card work in place of an AOW?

Ice diver has AOW as a prerequisite.

 

[Bob DBF]

The other for profit agencies (NAUI, etc.) arrived a few years later.

NAUI has always been a non-profit organization.

 

[Wookie]

Unless you mean that there is no legal or insurance requirement, but instead it's a shop/boat policy.

That's exactly what I meant and I apologize if I wasn't clear.

I have no beef with a dive shop that makes up a policy whether it's annual VIPs or requiring an AOW card for boat dives, or for oil rig dives. I didn't, but that's just me.

I ran and owned a liveaboard for 20 years. We likely had more onerous rules than any other liveaboard on the planet, and we enforced them with a SubSafe like rigidity that definitely turned off may potential customers from booking trips on our boat.

Run out of air? You were done diving for the entire trip. No exceptions, and no amount of whining was going to get you back in the water. Exceed 130 foot depth? You were going to sit out for 24 hours. Forgot to turn your computer on? Switch to tables and dive within the tables until you were clean, then you could follow the computer again. Diving tables? Tell us your dive plan upon getting in the water, and tells us again what you dove when you surfaced. But it was my boat, my rules, and I didn't try to pass my rules off on some faceless entity that no one could check up on. I owned the rules, I actually inherited them from the previous owner.

I remember a very well known dive operator in the upper Keys that everyone here on ScubaBoard knows, or at least knows his shop, who once said "you'd have a lot more business if you were nicer to your clients". He was likely correct, but I had made a conscious decision to take divers who could follow simple dive rules rather than be "nice" to those who couldn't.