What do you wish you could change about your (rec) wreck diving class?

[_Ralph]

Did mine with PADI

The only thing I'd complain about is doing dives in 2 deep wrecks ..... I would have rather spent the time in the 'wimpier' shallow wreck to get more time in with line work.

Otherwise superb course taught by a superb instructor/cave diver.

Maybe if we added O2 deco, although that is out of the realm of this question, and half the team I was doing the course with.


Shallower wrecks = longer bottom times


_R

 

[Jim Lapenta]

My PADI wreck class was pretty thin on substance. We did the dives but didn't spend much time on why, how, and what to do if the stuff hit the fan, how to ID a wreck, or how to map it.
When I became an instructor I looked for an agency that allowed me to add as much material as I wanted, use outside materials, and spend as much time talking about the risks, wreck identification, mapping, noting hazards, and offering limited penetration in a "tech lite" kind of way.
The idea was to offer a class that was actually prep for a technical wreck course. So it's 6 dives, 6-8 hours of classroom, line handling on the surface and under water. It also looks very closely and spends a lot of time looking at how wreck diving can kill a diver. That's actually the first thing we cover.
Much of it also takes place in relatively shallow depths to offer lots of bottom time. There is a quarry that has a lot of underwater items that can substitute for natural wrecks and offers a great variety of things to concentrate on.
A recreational wreck class should cover, as much as possible, the reasons that a recreational diver in a single tank has no business in an overhead.
I want to have a class that offers mapping, research of the wreck, identifying entry and exit points safely. Identifying entanglement hazards, lost ascent line drill (shooting a DSMB or bag for upline), exterior exploration, buoyancy, trim, navigating the wreck, and running lines. It should include tie off practice and instruction.
If there is going to be any penetration lines must be run. No exceptions. Use of markers on the lines. Redundant air sources, air shares out of the wreck, and choosing routes that allow divers to swim side by side. Otherwise, they don't go.
I'd also want my instructor to have technical wreck penetration training. Ideally, they should be a technical wreck instructor.
Recreational wreck diving that involves any kind of penetration should not be approached lightly.
The students should be evaluated first and if anything seems off -nervous, prone to anxiety, poor buoyancy and trim, not intimately familiar with their gear, etc. Probably should rethink taking them on for wreck training.
I have met some divers that if they asked me to do a recreational wreck class for them with the limited penetration I'd have to tell them no. I don't think they are ready for that yet.
I also don't think that the first wreck dives a diver does should be on deep wrecks (80-100ft). Not enough time on the bottom to build a skill set that will be ingrained.

 

[Akimbo]

There's a lot in this thread that might be useful: Wreck Penetration

I'm a big proponent of mastering black water as a basic skill before starting a wreck class.

 

[geoff w]

PADI wreck class in So Cal in 2011 on San Diego wrecks, TDI Advanced Wreck this May in south Florida with John Chatterton, just finished DMing for a PADI wreck class the last 2 weekends. All classes were great. For me as a student, both classes and instructors were outstanding, a lot of material was covered, but in 4 or 6 dives you can only go over so many different things. Things I would have done differently:

I should have taken the classes sooner and enjoyed wreck diving more. I've done lots of wreck diving, and enjoyed it much more after taking the first class.

I wish I had taken wreck as one of my AOW classes, but I don't think it was an option back in 1994 where we were diving

Jacket style BCs should be outlawed for any recreational wreck diving doing penetrations. I was still diving my old Scubapro classic when I took my first wreck class

I wish the classes were longer and included more dives to work on and improve more skills, but the reality is there's only so much material that can be covered in a class

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

I would like to see more stringent requirements for the instructor to teach it. There is a very good reason why I won't teach wreck diving: I'd suck at it. I don't have the training or experience to do a good job, so I won't. Same goes with sidemount for me.

 

[lermontov]

my two cents worth

No sure about recreational level wreck course and what is the schedule but after doing a 4 or 5 day adv wreck course the pivotal eureka moment came when I was taken into a room and the instructor silted it up and I had to find my way out. All the knowledge and theory about the course came into sharp focus at that moment and I remember the thought that came to me was ' how ridiculously easy it would be to die in here"
After that I took wreck diving very seriously.
I have discussed the wreck course with my tech instructor many many times since and I think situational awareness is an extremely important part of wreck penetration.
Even at an entry level course a dive debrief is critical to increasing awareness -'DId you see the ladder. did you notice tie off points., how many escape windows did you notice, what was your TP at point xyz etc"

Im also an advocate for honest feed back - I want to know if Im lacking in a skillset I want my instructor to tell me where I need to practice or get better at - if i am going to attempt a dive i want him to tell me - your not ready etc I think some instructors are worried they might not come back and I dont want to upset them so they say nothing but try to get them on the next course

skills are off course the entry benchmark, mental aptitude and situational awareness -can they be taught ? not in day but a course can give you the tools to start the learning process
A course isn't enough to train you to wreck dive - it takes mentoring someone to recognise exactly where your at and take you the next step

I have no complaints about my course - most importantly after the course I realised i knew virtually nothing other than the journey had begun. If you can open the door for students and let them peek inside and inspire them to acquire the skills to go in then In my view you've succeeded as an instructor


@Bert van den Berg - Bert have you dived at Port Gore?

 

[Bert van den Berg]

@Bert van den Berg - Bert have you dived at Port Gore?

Hi lermontov. Dived many different countries on 2+ year sailboat cruise from San Diego to New Zealand but have not had the pleasure of diving at Port Gore at the top of the South Island. Sounds like a good place to go to however. I take it that you have, or are considering it?

My wreck diving experience is very limited to about 12 dives on two warships, the Waikato at 27M and the Canterbury at 37M. My instructor threatened to blindfold me and make me find the line but decided it was a bit too much for a beginning wreck class and we tried (unsucessfully) to find the engine room at the third level of the Canterbury. This was outside the PADI guidelines for penetration distance but the instructor knows me well and wasn't concerned.

 

[Ojai Diver]

I recently finished my PADI Wreck cert. class. I have mixed feelings about it.

I took the class 1. to support my dive club, and 2., to find, for once, somebody else also interested in wreck diving. For number 2, I was unsuccessful. (And anybody out there in Southern California interested in this, feel free to pm me.)

Regarding the class, on the one hand, I really enjoyed it. Everything we did, I liked. We dove the Yukon in San Diego. We were to do four dives, but one of them was waived for me and others if we had an equivalent. So we three actual dives, one practicing line work, another assessing the wreck on where to penetrate, and the last to actually do so.

We also did the knowledge section of the rather thin PADI manual.

While I did learn in the class, and found I was comfortable in the controlled environment of penetration (cleaned out wreck, good condition, instructor present) I thought the hard knowledge conveyed was fairly sparse. I could have used more re what can go wrong and why. The whole conceit of the class was that at its successful completion we were to be able to do to light penetration safely on our own, and I am not sure that that was or could be trained in four (really three) dives.

I wasn't expecting to emerge as John Chatterton on getting this cert, but I had hoped I would learn more than I did. A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing, and I was looking for more than a little.

Regarding finding like minded students, both of the other two students in the class said they were not really interested in wreck diving--not sure why they took the class. Perhaps they didn't like what they saw.

 

[Power Scuba]

I wasn't expecting to emerge as John Chatterton on getting this cert, but I had hoped I would learn more than I did. A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing, and I was looking for more than a little.

Regarding finding like minded students, both of the other two students in the class said they were not really interested in wreck diving--not sure why they took the class. Perhaps they didn't like what they saw.

They may have just been going after the patch.

The class is for recreational penetration. It has a lot of caveats as far as how wide the passages and entrances must be, depth & penetration limits, etc, but is solid for what it is. If you found something lacking in the course, that the course outline told you was included... did you discuss this with your instructor?

Bill

 

[boulderjohn]

Over the past year I have been in serious discussions with PADI leadership about the content of the wreck class. I think it will be OK if you have an instructor who is willing to "fill in the gaps" and do more than appears in it. You will also need an instructor who understands the hidden meaning of some of the PADI language, hidden meaning that I did not understand myself until earlier this year. I wrote a suggestion for some changes, and I was told they will include those changes in the future. Here are some highlights of my concerns and suggestions.

• There is not enough time spent learning to lay line properly.
• There is no requirement in the PADI system that a wreck instructor have any real training in laying line before teaching the class. In contrast, the PADI cavern diver class requires the instructor to be a certified cave diver, meaning that a PADI cavern instructor is required to have plenty of serious training on laying line.
• You are not allowed to "penetrate" a wreck until the end of the course when learning to lay line, and you are told that you must NEVER "penetrate" a wreck without laying line. The word "penetrate" is not defined, so most people will use their common sense understanding of the term, meaning you cannot enter an overhead area until the end of the course, and you cannot enter an overhead area without laying line. That is not what PADI means by it, though. For them, "penetration" is entering an enclosed area that is still within the light zone, turning around, and coming back through the same place you entered. Going in one place and coming out another (like swimming from one end of a deck the other and exiting there) is not a penetration. It is a swim-through.
• The term "swim-through" is not used in the course, and the idea of going in one place and exiting another is not mentioned, either. Divers and instructors are all supposed to know already that swim-throughs are considered to be open water, and they can be done---when exercising good judgment about the dangers--at any time in the course. (This was news to me.)
• The strict limitations on diving mentioned in all courses, including the wreck diving course, are always starting points. As you gain more experience and training, you can use your good judgment to exceed those limits. With time, experience, and further training, you can enter more complex swim throughs, you can penetrate beyond the light zone, and you can penetrate in some places without laying line. Just use good judgment about your preparation.
• The new wording I suggested and was supposedly approved defines swim-throughs and penetrations. It talks about exceeding the defined limits with further training and experience.