Unsafe divers on my boat!

[mlcircle]

You hit it on the head Mike - except for the one hugely important fact - my agency has an Advanced certification that DOES train me for deeper dives... Training. As for baby-sitting - I prefer to look at it as protecting my investment if you want to stick to monetary terms. I lost the second dive on that boat trip because the shop let on two UNTRAINED divers. They were OW only. It was a relatively inexpensive lesson tho - considering that we could just as easily have been meeting one or a pair of hearses when we got back to the dive shop.

 

[The Kraken]

Bubba, there are none. You are a customer of the dive boat. You have not contracted to provide a service based on your training or certifications.

An analogy would be this:
Suppose you are an instructor pilot. You and 5 other pilots go out to the airport to rent 3 planes to do some kicks and giggles flying. One of the pilots in another plane forgets to set his altimeter. At some point in the flight that pilot runs into some IFR flying conditions and flies into the side of a mountain because his altimeter was set incorrectly.
Are you liable because you're an instructor pilot?

 

[miketsp]

Bubba, there are none. You are a customer of the dive boat. You have not contracted to provide a service based on your training or certifications.

An analogy would be this:
Suppose you are an instructor pilot. You and 5 other pilots go out to the airport to rent 3 planes to do some kicks and giggles flying. One of the pilots in another plane forgets to set his altimeter. At some point in the flight that pilot runs into some IFR flying conditions and flies into the side of a mountain because his altimeter was set incorrectly.
Are you liable because you're an instructor pilot?

Not quite comparable. Obviously if you're in a different plane you're not in a position to help. On a boat you may or may not be able to help.

Oh, just a minor niggle on terminology, you may be IFR in VMC, I think you meant to say IMC.

 

[MikeFerrara]

I see this as about half-right. A boat captain/ dive operator has a moral responsibility to run as safe boat as he can. This means that if it is obvious that someone is not capable of executing a dive, the captain has the right to sit them down for a day. We had Garry Binieki this weekend out of Sanilac and he has recovered bodies off these wrecks working for the dive team. The sad statistic that he quoted me was that of the seven serious ones that he has looked at six or seven where DM's and/or instructors were the hurt/ dead divers. Further proof that arrrogance knows no boders, I guess.

Don't get me wrong. I wouldn't want to be on a boat doing 120 ft wreck dives with these people. I just don't place the responsibility with the boat crew.

I was on a Lake Michigan boat one day and the deepest dive was about 75 ft. There were 6 of us on the boat and my wife and I were the only ones to actually get down to a wreck. The other 4 divers had all kinds of probles ranging from lost weight belts, lost tanks (and near drowning because of it) to who knows what. Every diver was at least AOW certified. My wife and I cut both dives short because no one else ever showed up on the wreck and we didn't want to complicate any rescue attempt by staying in the water.

That was just one trip but there were more that were disasters. I don't go on rec boats any more unless I know most or all of the divers on the boat.

Divers who aren't up to the dive can endanger you and every other diver on the boat. I just don't leave it to the boat crew. I'll blame the divers first and their instructors and agencies second but it seems unreasonable to expect the charter to be much more than a taxi.

I also know boats where you just aren't going to any of the good wrecks unless they know you or you come with references and it doesn't matter what kind of card you have or what's in your logbook. It's more to protect them than me though.

 

[MikeFerrara]

You hit it on the head Mike - except for the one hugely important fact - my agency has an Advanced certification that DOES train me for deeper dives...

Which agency and what do they provide in the way of deep dive training in a AOW class?

 

[Former FLL Now MSP Diver]

I was on a Lake Michigan boat one day and the deepest dive was about 75 ft. There were 6 of us on the boat and my wife and I were the only ones to actually get down to a wreck. The other 4 divers had all kinds of probles ranging from lost weight belts, lost tanks (and near drowning because of it) to who knows what. Every diver was at least AOW certified. My wife and I cut both dives short because no one else ever showed up on the wreck and we didn't want to complicate any rescue attempt by staying in the water.

That was just one trip but there were more that were disasters. I don't go on rec boats any more unless I know most or all of the divers on the boat.

It seems that all the divers around you always seem to have the worst luck.

NAUI, SSI and PADI all offer deep diving courses. What's your point?

Marc

 

[lhpdiver]

This isn't agency related - but it is dive op / diver responsibility / dive buddy / liability related. No names - no finger pointing.

Yesterday's dive. 110 ft wreck. Nice big dive boat unusally uncrowded for a Sunday afternoon. Capt, DM, 1 experienced hunter we know, 1 diver we had never met, seems like a nice guy maybe 30ish, my wife and myself. Very informal - we dive this boat alot. I'm unworking DM. On the ride out DM says maybe he'll join us - we agree new diver can join us. DM ties off and on surfacing says current is very strong - he won't be joining us - he's had enough exercise. Hunter goes in solo. Boat is not tied into line. Capt drops us in down current, I drift into bouy and descend to maybe 10-15 feet. Current is ripping. My wife is up line maybe 5 feet, I see other diver behind her it looks like he's about 2 feet off the line. I continue down the line and stop maybe at 60 feet. My wife is behind me but no other diver. We look at each other shrug and continue down. I figured he had trouble clearing...

Nice dive - hunter has good afternoon - see one other solo diver from a smaller boat. We surface and run into hunter at safety stop. Get back on the boat - crew says one diver to go. Huh ? New diver not on boat. Tell crew we didn't see him on the wreck. Hunter confirms. I'm reallly surprised this guy isn't on the boat. By now this is maybe 40-45 minutes after we hit the water. Leave the line tied into the wreck, let's start looking for the guy. Call comes in on the VHF. someone has picked up a lost diver. We go pick him up.

Turns out diver was pulled off line while looking at his gauge. He elected not to resurface but rather descended to sand and tried to pull himself along bottom to wreck. Gave up 20 minutes later and surfaced - who knows where - then floated. Back on boat the most constructive thing I could think to say was - next time surface and the capt. will drop you again. Guy sat out the second dive...

So was I wrong in not watching this guy more closely ? Should I have been at the top of the line ? When I realized he wasn't on the line behind us should we have aborted our dive to find him ? Was I liable ? Maybe things are different in different areas of the country. Here things are very casual. If these nods of the head given when someone asks if they can dive with you are contracts then there needs to be another waiver on the boat in addition to the one covering the boat owner's a**.

I like this wreck but in the fall I had to help another diver in an OOA situation there. Then sometime this spring - on another Sunday afternoon dive with my wife - another DM asked me if I would take this same diver (Mr OOA) on our dive. I said no. I didn't win any friends that day.

 

[miketsp]

... we agree new diver can join us.

You accepted him as a buddy.

I see other diver behind her it looks like he's about 2 feet off the line.
I continue down the line and stop maybe at 60 feet. My wife is behind me but no other diver. We look at each other shrug and continue down. I figured he had trouble clearing...

You continued your dive after losing your buddy in a high current situation. If I was your new buddy I would have been really P.O.

So was I wrong in not watching this guy more closely ?
When I realized he wasn't on the line behind us should we have aborted our dive to find him ?
Was I liable ?

YES
YES
YES

Maybe things are different in different areas of the country.

These things should not be different anywhere.. :11:

 

[pasley]

... That being said, however, I have to admit that I have to resist cringing when I get on a boat and find that there are inesperienced divers from one particular agency: PADI....
We signed in on the clip board and the other two divers were PADI Open Water certified - one with only 13 dives and who had been certified 12 years before! The other diver had 33 dives. We later found out that the more experience diver was diabetic and had siezures... none of which was shared with the other divers. ...

Yes I know what you mean. When I see an inexperienced diver with a NAUI card, I just cringe. No telling what type of training they have, and who knows what stupid stuff they may do.

Now wasn’t that an unfair and unfounded statement for me to make? Now I really don't feel that way, I judge each diver on their own merits, but I say it only to make a point. That point is that it absolutely funny the length people will go to, to bash one particular training agency. Why? Do they do so because it is successful, or because they have standardized training (which is IMHO not a bad thing). Bottom line is that inexperienced is inexperienced regardless of training agency.

What did the training agency have to do with anything that happened in this post? Answer: absolutely nothing! The divers just as easily could have been NAUI, YSCUBA, ACUC, IDEA, PDIC, SSI or some other agency. The account would have been more valid if the agency bashing were deleted.

The Facts here are:
1. Divers diving beyond their training (BOW diving below 60 feet) in violation of the certifying agency guidelines.
2. Divers signing up to dive deep who lack experience (13 dives in 12 years)
3. Divers signing up to dive deep who have not dove in a long time (and we don't know if they took a refresher course)
4. Diver with a significant health risk (but you do not know if a medically qualified person who knows dive medicine has evaluated the situation [which I doubt too] and given the go ahead).
5. Divers failed to make buddy pre dive check
6. Divers tank came loose on dive (seen it happen on more than one dive, and yes one of the divers was NAUI certified).
7. The above divers could have been trained by any agency (NAUI, YSCUBA, ACUC, IDEA, PDIC, SSI etc.) as the issues above are not a matter of training or even the quality of the instructor, but of the individual making poor decisions and failing to execute their training.

So how is any of the above PADI’s fault? Answer, it is not. It is the failure of the individual and, I might add the dive operator who booked them on the trip. The diver themselves failed to execute the dive as trained by their certifying agency and were diving beyond their certification level. So why the PADI bashing?

 

[miketsp]

Just to play the devil's advocate for a minute.
Let's just suppose the boat operator reviewed the qualifications of the prospective customer and decided they were lacking.

Operator: "Hey buddy, looks like you're a little out of practice, would you like to contract a personal DM to cover you?"
Customer: "No"
Operator: "Are you sure you're up to this dive?"
Customer: "Yes, I'm qualified."
Operator: "Sorry I can't take you because..."

Then what, if the operator refuses to carry the customer, can't he be accused of discrimination?
Gets even more delicate if the customer is a member of a minority group in that area.
Customer: "Hey, what have you got against blacks/whites/chinese/californians etc? I'll have your a$$."

In some countries I've worked this can turn nasty fast.
In many countries refusing to sell an advertised service or goods at the advertised price is a crime in itself. It could just appear that the seller wants to jack up the price and is using a revised risk evaluation as an excuse to force a bundled sale ie outing + DM.