Wreck diving - something I saw as a grey area

[headhunter]

This weekend I dove a couple of wrecks in San Diego. One was the Yukon and the other was the Ruby E.

I want to be clear and say that I'm not trained for an overhead environment and I've taken DIR-F, but remain "provisional".

When going around the Yukon I clearly saw this as an overhead environment and remained outside the wreck at all times.

However, when diving the Ruby E, I saw that it had some large holes in the deck (it sits upright in the sand) and I felt that it would be OK to just drop down into the wreck as long as I maintained the opening above me. In this way I did not consider this an overhead environment. Thinking back upon that now, I'm not sure it was the right thing to do.

Was dropping into the Ruby E in this manner OK to do with my level of training?

As a DIR diver, I'm only interested in a DIR answer and that's why I've posted this here in the main DIR forum for all of us to learn from my question showcasing my ignorance on this point.

Christian

 

[MHK]

When going around the Yukon I clearly saw this as an overhead environment and remained outside the wreck at all times.

However, when diving the Ruby E, I saw that it had some large holes in the deck (it sits upright in the sand) and felt that it would be OK to just drop down into the wreck as long as I maintained the opening above me. In this way I did not consider this an overhead environment. Thinking back upon that now, I'm not sure it was the right thing to do.

Was dropping into the Ruby E in this manner OK to do with my level of training?

Christian,

The idea of "dropping into the wreck while maintaining the opening above" is an extremely troubling mindset from my point of view. Any OE should be approached from the perspective of the fact that it is in fact an OE. The inviting and alluring nature of many of the artifical reefs are somewhat troubling to me. If you are going to dive an OE it should be approached with the proper mindset, ie; redundancy of doubles, continuous guidelines, lights, long hoses, gas reserve protocols, proper propulsion techniques, back-up masks etc, etc.. You can't half-heartedly dive an OE, it's either done "right", or it isn't..

When the Yukon sank we did a free wreck diving seminar in San Diego simply to reinforce the idea that although wreck alley is promoted as "recreational", it still requires that OE's be respected for the potential problems they can cause.

Too much can go wrong, too quickly to allow for the kind of mindset that you used. It may not even be you, or your teammate that causes the silt-out or line entanglement, it could be someone else equally non-qualified to be in an OE that could cause the problem, and then in a silt-out, no-vis situation you won't care who caused the problem, you'll only care that you can get out and the OE protocols that we recommend will be the difference between getting home, and not..

Call me if you have any additional questions..

 

[TSandM]

Not specifically a DIR answer, but some time ago, a rebreather diver posted an utterly terrifying story of swimming "just a little ways" into a wreck with a huge rent in the side of it. He got silted out and lost, and actually thought he was going to die.

There was a similar story on DIR Explorers not long ago, where two divers swam into a wreck in very poor viz without realizing they had done so, and then had the dickens of a time finding their way out.

Sounds to me as though wrecks without proper training and equipment are just CFs waiting to happen.

(I'll admit to having swum through the Rhone in the BVI, though -- but it was just a single channel with daylight at both ends, and no silt.)

 

[rjack321]

I don't know the Ruby E and MHK's answer is more knowledgable than mine in this regard.

But, for instance, there is an intentionally sunk freighter in Sidney BC, the G.B. Church. It is a coastal frieghter with a small bow space, and a wheelhouse with engine room in the stern. In between are open holds with the booms of several cranes overhead. These aren't just a spot torn open, there's nothing overhead even if you drop into the hold and swim horizontally until you run into a wall. If you could even call that a space, that's the kind of space I will enter without a guideline and associated penetration limits on equipment, team and gas.

Just having a tiny spot of open water above you doesn't qualify, what if you stumble horizontally in a silt out?

 

[SparticleBrane]

How many of you have had something happen to your car that stopped it from working completely?
How many of you have passed someone on the highway where you seriously needed that extra engine speed to get around them before oncoming traffic got you?

To me, diving without proper OE training in an OE is just like that. If your car died right as you needed that last boost of power...you're done for.

 

[rjack321]

To me, the original question was asking for helping knowing what was and wasn't an overhead.

Inside a ship with a "hole" overhead is an OE to me.

Between the two walls of a drydock (think a U shape) isn't to me. In a U there's no place to prevent you from ascending - no matter how much you accidentally stumble sideways, can't see which way is up, or whatever. Inflate your BC and you'll go up regardless.

 

[limeyx]

I don't know the Ruby E and MHK's answer is more knowledgable than mine in this regard.

But, for instance, there is an intentionally sunk freighter in Sidney BC, the G.B. Church. It is a coastal frieghter with a small bow space, and a wheelhouse with engine room in the stern. In between are open holds with the booms of several cranes overhead. These aren't just a spot torn open, there's nothing overhead even if you drop into the hold and swim horizontally until you run into a wall. If you could even call that a space, that's the kind of space I will enter without a guideline and associated penetration limits on equipment, team and gas.

Just having a tiny spot of open water above you doesn't qualify, what if you stumble horizontally in a silt out?

The compartments on the Ruby/E are pretty small and full of silt (over a foot deep in some places). Also, it's possible to go in "2 rooms" deep (through a small door etc).

If silt got kicked up (pretty easy to do), it would be REALLY easy to get disoriented and not be able to find your way out I would think.

The El/Ray is similar.

 

[jerryn]

I think the question is the strict DIR definition of (non-virtual) overhead environment.

Some thought on the subject of a penetration of the Ruby E as outlined by Christian:

If an OE is a place underwater where you cannot immediately make a vertical ascent to the surface then the fact that if you went sideways once inside the Ruby E. you would be in one does not mean that you are in one if you do not go sideways.

Consider being outside of the Yukon swimming near the sand, do you have to go away from the ship everytime you pass as structure to be sure you are not in an OE (no direrect vertical ascent)? If the fact that you could go sideways into an overhead environment creates one, then the top of the Yukon with its surges past each entrance creates an OE above the ship. Should no one who aspires to be a GUE/DIR diver dive the Yukon before getting their GUE wreck penetration OE training?

So this is a bit tricky -- I cannot speak for GUE and don't presume to, but I know the Ruby E well and it is pretty difficult to get lost inside. I don't think the issue should be ...omygod i'm in an OE, but should be, am I trained to deal with wrecks, silt outs, entanglements, falling objects, torn hoses and torn dry suits and the like. Here you could well come to the conclusion that whether or not GUE calls this an OE is irrelevant, are the real hazards are ones you are not trained or experientially not comfortable with in the event they become problems and therefore you should not go in?....
Jerry

 

[rjack321]

Are Limeyx's descriptions of the openings/interior accurate? There's a foot of silt on the floor, small doors, 2 rooms in and you think it would be hard to get lost???:11:

The OP wanted to know how to define an overhead. The ease at which one can get lost has nothing to do with that definition.

 

[MHK]

I think the question is the strict DIR definition of (non-virtual) overhead environment.

Jerry,

With all due respect, I think part of what "DIR" is offering in this type of analysis is that we wouldn't spend the time parsing language to arrive at a definition. Our mindset is more along the lines of if you are going to do something, Do It Right or don't bother doing it at all. In the instant case, I'm hard pressed to know anyone that has fully adopted a DIR mindset that would spend a second worrying about "if I went into a wreck, but stayed directly under the opening, does that mean I'm in an OE?" It's precisely that line of thinking that we would avoid like the plague. Our approach to this kind of dive would be more along the lines of " This is an OE and if we are going to go inside, we're going to go inside for a lot more then just hanging out under the opening, so therefore we'd run lines; we'd have redundant doubles; we'd have primary and back-up lights; we'd use proper propulsion techniques; we'd use team protocols and so on." We wouldn't even think of poking our head inside an OE just so we can stay directly under an opening and hope that nothing went wrong. That is a flawed dive plan and we would reject it out of hand at the surface before we even got wet. Part of diving in a unified team is the fact that we all agree on a dive plan, and no one that has been trained in GUE OE protocols would even consider the idea of just poking you and your buddies head inside an OE to stay directly under a opening..

Hope that clears up the point..