Sport Chalet Instruction...new rules

[rongoodman]

In My Not So Honest Opinion

 

[The Chairman]

and a better chance if the electronics fail.

You mean like the eRDP???

 

[The Chairman]

In My Not So Honest Opinion

Bwahahahaha! I think the "H" stands for humble.

 

[terrasmak]

Im suprized they dont charge you extra to add the computer specialty with OW.

 

[dhaas]

This thread cracks me up.

JahJahWarrior with all of 0-24 dives (according to his profile, and please NO OFFENSE) is head over heels in LOVE with his tables, as are many instructors who think people learn to dive in the classroom....My 36 years of diving experience has shown me no one ever drowned in the classroom.....More pool and open water time will make a diver safe.

Mike Veitch, one of my fellow super experienced UW photographers and a guy working out there in the field watching what REAL sport divers do diving with or without a computer describes the real scenario, and many still insist on teaching tables.

I'm with Mike and the others who say, screw tables......Teach Nitrogen loading, how a computer calculates it and then help them learn how to use a dive computer safely. Like many I dive two on extended trips. Compared to a BC, reg, etc. a reliable computer is cheap these days. I haven't had a single person on one of my trips in the last 10 years show up diving tables.....Unless they wanted to get 50% LESS safe bottom time.

Most divers with an archaic, less than accurate to +/- 5 feet of sea water depth gauge couldn't tell you how deep they went. Or track their time accurately. They forget to start their watch, rotate their bezel, etc. So the two pieces of data REQUIRED to be entered on tables is IMHO way off anyway.

As far as re-entering tables if your computer goes kaput, this is a scary failed theory. Karl Huggins (who co-invented the algorithm in the original Orca EDGE) had a guy develop a set of very complicated protocols, recording your dives on paper plus surface intervals and attempting to re-enter tables after a computer failure to arrive at a post dive repetitive group letter. In the 1980s........It didn't work for people then, and it ain't going to work now.

If you lock out because you only learned tables and didn't get a computer you practiced with and can safely follow, go soak up some rays and have a Corona or Pina Colada

Sorry for the rant, but when I taught actively for 14 years I heard this same crappola' about abandoning "standard" buddy breathing in favor of an octopus. Oh my God, you'd have thought the progressive thinking scuba people were advocating diving without fins!

If I was an active instructor I'd be in the camp of online, self paced BOOK work with review by an instructor, more POOL time without people's hand being glued to the damn BC inflator and more actual Open Water Dives before certification!!

I have said many times and believe I could teach anyone to be a safe diver if they can do 5 things:

1) Mask clearing (the most critical skill that can induce panic in my years of experience)

2) Regulator clearing, recovery and air sharing

3) Weighting and Buoyancy

4) Proper Fin Kicks

5) Safe Depth / Time profiles best done with a self turning on computer

Most sport divers can't do these adequately which is why we still have (and will continue to have) a higher than should be drop out rate.

It doesn't have to be this way.......Combine progress with the simple joy of safely soaring through the underwater environment....

Hope I didn't break any Scubaboard Rules!

YMMV

David Haas
www.haasimages.com

 

[Kevrumbo]

<snip>As far as re-entering tables if your computer goes kaput, this is a scary failed theory. Karl Huggins (who co-invented the algorithm in the original Orca EDGE) had a guy develop a set of very complicated protocols, recording your dives on paper plus surface intervals and attempting to re-enter tables after a computer failure to arrive at a post dive repetitive group letter. In the 1980s........It didn't work for people then, and it ain't going to work now.
<snip.

I agree with their policy. Why teach people to use something that is obsolete for %95+ of the diving world.

We use precisely those tables to calculate & keep track of Nitrogen Loading for all our Staff Personnel at the Catalina Hyperbaric Chamber (of which Karl Huggins is my Boss & Manager of the Facility), during a Patient Treatment.
http://wrigley.usc.edu/hyperbaric/TOP.HTM

Tables work for people here & now and are a still viable tool to use & learn . . .c'mon guys, don't look stupid with rhetorical BS statements like "obsolete for %95+ of the diving world" (what are you thinking Pete?):shakehead

 

[JahJahwarrior]

I have 13 dives and I'm darn proud of the 6:35 I have spent underwater! I don't want to sound like an arrogant jerk or anything, but I'm not stupid so I feel entitled to hold to my opinions even though I realized that both Netdoc and Veitch have tonnes more experience and are more recognized than I am.

I continue to see tables as a necessary safety feature. You carry an octo, not becuase you need it, but becuase it might be necessary if things went downhill. Cave divers dive independent doubles or with an isolation manifold and some dive with an H valve so they are ok even when the feces hit the fan. Some divers carry extra masks, many dives carry a pony. I think a responsible diver, the guy with doubles with an isolation manifold, stage bottles, pony and extra mask, would carry backup. At that stage of the game, he's probably able to carry backup computers, but a simple rec diver would, planning for the worst (as they say, dress for the slide, not for the ride), carry his backup, which is a set of tables. I see no problem teaching more than tables, and I think it might be beneficial to teach computer diving basics in OW class, but teaching tables won't hurt anybody and assuming the person who's teaching you is charging $10 an hour, you'd pay just a little over a dollar to learn how to use them. A dollar to learn something, now thats pretty good right there if you ask me.

 

[Thalassamania]

As far as re-entering tables if your computer goes kaput, this is a scary failed theory. Karl Huggins (who co-invented the algorithm in the original Orca EDGE) had a guy develop a set of very complicated protocols, recording your dives on paper plus surface intervals and attempting to re-enter tables after a computer failure to arrive at a post dive repetitive group letter. In the 1980s........It didn't work for people then, and it ain't going to work now.

Actually that was not developed by Karl or at Karl's request, it was independently developed by Mike Emmerman and Phil Sharkey, each of whom gave the other credit for it at the Catalina Dive Computer Workshop (Mike called it S.E.X., "the Sharkey Emmerman Exchange" while Phil referred to it as E.S.P. or "the Emmerman Sharkey Protocol." This is rather irrelevant today and was likely irrelevant to most recreational divers then (none of whom were using computers yet) but when you&#8217;re using a research vessel and your little dive trip runs about twenty grand per day, have to be damn sure that you're not going to be forced out of the water for twelve to twenty four hours by a computer failure. Getting back onto tables was a critical issue. But it was not a complicated protocol ... read the paper.

Read that report for some interesting perspectives on what you're discussing here, there's nothing new under the sun.<G>

I don't understand what the big deal is, a dive computer is nothing but an animated set of tables, this was observed back at the Catalina meeting, the critical question is not electronic vs. (paper of plastic) but rather what is taught along with it.

 

[The Chairman]

Tables work for people here & now and are a still viable tool to use & learn . . .c'mon guys, don't look stupid with rhetorical BS statements like "obsolete for %95+ of the diving world" (what are you thinking Pete?):shakehead

You show me a hundred divers and I will show you 98 that don't do tables. Of course, you could stack the deck, but what are YOU thinking here? Do you really think that tables are used with any regularity by Joe and Josephine Diver? I don't think so.

 

[Mike Veitch]

I have 13 dives and I'm darn proud of the 6:35 I have spent underwater! I don't want to sound like an arrogant jerk or anything, but I'm not stupid so I feel entitled to hold to my opinions even though I realized that both Netdoc and Veitch have tonnes more experience and are more recognized than I am.

I continue to see tables as a necessary safety feature. You carry an octo, not becuase you need it, but becuase it might be necessary if things went downhill. Cave divers dive independent doubles or with an isolation manifold and some dive with an H valve so they are ok even when the feces hit the fan. Some divers carry extra masks, many dives carry a pony. I think a responsible diver, the guy with doubles with an isolation manifold, stage bottles, pony and extra mask, would carry backup. At that stage of the game, he's probably able to carry backup computers, but a simple rec diver would, planning for the worst (as they say, dress for the slide, not for the ride), carry his backup, which is a set of tables. I see no problem teaching more than tables, and I think it might be beneficial to teach computer diving basics in OW class, but teaching tables won't hurt anybody and assuming the person who's teaching you is charging $10 an hour, you'd pay just a little over a dollar to learn how to use them. A dollar to learn something, now thats pretty good right there if you ask me.

no one is saying that tables are irrelevant. They are good to know and of course they are the basis for computers etc etc but...

For too long tables were the ONLY thing taught in class, computers were not taught. That is the ostrich head in the hole approach. Realistically, not too many RECREATIONAL divers who dive on a frequent basis use the tables as opposed to a computer.

Computers need to be taught in this day and age, not ignored as it leads to too many people not having the knowledge to use one. No need to show people how to use 30 different ones during OW. But, showing how at least 2 or 3 work and teaching how to read one and understanding the theory behind it, including the use of the tables.. is the best way to go about it.

Teaching the computer is teaching the real world scenario for the vast majority of non-tech divers.

So, the best scenario would be to start off people with the tables to get a basic understanding of the stuff.... then drill computer use into them during OW! including DECO because that is what they will end up using