This weekend (22nd June 1996) saw the annual UK IANTD conference held 
down at Swindon, with a host of interesting presentations, workshops, practical 
pool sessions and a trade show.  Those of you who could have gone and didn't 
really blew it !  For those of you who couldn't go, I'll give a brief report of 
what I saw & did.  If anyone there gets missed out or their name forgotten, I 
apologise in advance.  This is only a brief personal perspective, given whilst 
my memory is fresh.  Anyone else who went, feel free to add to this report.

	For me, the weekend began with a fascinating presentation by Richard 
Larne on the many different ways of researching wreck history.  This was 
then followed by a presentation from an archaelogical stance of wrecking and
the 
law.

	Outside the auditorium however on the trade stands, the show was being 
stolen by the launch of A.P.Valves "Inspiration" closed-circuit, mixed-gas 
rebreather.  This unit has been developed over the last 3 years by Dave
Thompson 
 (Phoenix Diving Ltd) in conjunction with A.P.Valves (Britains largest B.C. 
manufacturer, with a widely held reputation for quality and good after sales 
service).  This is a company that I think is going to deliver what it says it 
will & is not going to 'fade away' into obscurity.  

	The rebreather is projected to be on sale to suitably trained divers in 
November 1996 for a very affordable price of just 2,000 pounds !!  No, I didn't 
miss a zero off the price tag...that's *TWO THOUSAND POUNDS, UK*.  I should
have 
some nice colour pictures in the camera of the unit on display and in the
water. 
 I'll post them to Eric Lundquist to put up on his rebreather page  
(http://diver.ocean.washington.edu/rebreather.html)  in a few days, once I have 
OK'd the technical details with Dave Thompson & checked that I'm not giving
away 
anything of commercial sensitivity that I shouldn't.

	A Workshop session on rebreathers was given mid-morning by Dave Thompson 
& focussed on both the Drager 'Atlantis' and the A.P.Valves 'Inspiration' 
rebreathers.  Here we got to see the insides of both units & had a very 
informative talk on the merits of both units.

	Needless to say, I was 1st in the queue to try the 'Inspiration' 
rebreather in the pool for the first morning practical session.  More later
this 
week...

	In the afternoon a very dry & amusing (but serious) talk was given by Dr 
McNicoll on a variety of ear, nose & throat problems that might affect divers.  
Dr McNicoll is an ex-Navy consultant with a long track record of specialising
in 
diving problems & I made sure that I had a contact telephone number written
down 
before he had finished.

	The day was finished by a very infomative talk on diving the 'Minnihaha' 
wreck at 90m-100m off the coast of Ireland.  The Minnihaha was a twin 
engined ocean going liner torpedoed during the war.  This wreck is owned and 
presently being actively worked by two divers who were understandably reluctant 
to give details & photographs of what they had lifted and what was still down 
there to an audience of technical divers (!)  Nevertherless, the talk was 
extremely interesting & focussed upon the history of the wreck and the 
techniques used to dive her.  A picture was given of what must be the most 
comfortable 2-man deco station I have ever seen.  It folded out to give 2 
'bar-stools' for the divers to sit on, with footrests and a chest restaint, 
together with a secure location for the deco bottles to be stowed.  I could 
easily imagine lying back & going to sleep on a setup like this.  The station 
was supported by a 'sausage' of bouys that completely damped out any snatch
from 
a choppy Atlantic sea and maintained a steady depth of 6m.  The whole rig could 
be folded up & put into the back of a car on top of the rest of the dive gear.

	 On the 2nd day I attended Workshops on kit configuration by Tom Mount & 
on oxygen analysers by Vandagraph Ltd.  This latter session was poorly
attended, 
which was a great shame, but must have been due to the popularity of other 
sessions.  I have been using an O2 analyser for the last year, but learned a
lot 
about 'do's & don'ts' that I'm sure many others could have benefited from.  eg, 
I didn't know that leaving an O2 sensor in hot sunlight for a short while will 
destroy it.  Nor did I know that allowing a sensor to be completely dried, eg
by 
running pure O2 past it for extended periods will also destroy it.  Storing the 
sensor in a sealed container or an O2 free environment is also unlikely to 
increase its lifetime...apparenty most sensor failures are not due to
exhaustion 
of the fuel cell & so removing oxygen is a misguided attempt to extend the 
lifetime.  We were advised that the best way to store the sensor was under 
normal atmospheric conditions, attached to the O2 guage so that water couldn't 
accidentally enter the back of the sensor (this is also pretty bad news for the 
sensor).

	On the use of the O2 analyser, we were advised to take measurements 
after a 5 second gas flow past the sensor, but without gas actually flowing.  
Using Vandagraph's gas sampling system, there is apparently suffficient back-up 
of pressure in the sensor to affect the accuracy of the reading significantly.  
Similarly, calibration of the sensor to 21% in air is not recommended in a 
strong wind.  The pressure build up will affect the ppO2.

  	Another pool session on rebreathers was followed by a pool session on 
the use of scooters.  The Hilton Hotel pool relatively small & so the scooter 
session was amusing....

	In the afternoon the Army gave a talk on their introduction to trimix 
diving and how they found the 'Pheasant' near Scapa Flow at a depth of 75m.  
this is a virgin warship that was successfully dived by all 10 members of the 
team on the last day of the expedition, culminating 2 + 1/2 years of planning.

	Whilst I was there, I also picked up an umbilical torch hand-made by a 
group of Dutch divers.  This delivers a hefty 12v, 50 watt beam for over 1 hour 
from two battery stacks ( 12 of 5 A.h D-cells).  Along with this torch comes an 
amazing Reflex charger that will charge from 2 to 12 NiCd or NiMH cells of any 
capacity between 0.5 A.hr to 6 A.hr from complete discharge to fully charged in 
just 1 hour, without over-heating or damaging the batteries  !  It does this by 
a series of 5 charging stages - a polling stage, a 'warm-up' charging stage, a 
principal charging stage, a top-up stage and a maintenance stage.  The
principal 
charging stage delivers pulses of charge every second, followed by a very short 
discharge pulse of 5 times the charging current.  It is claimed that this 
discharge pulse prevents gassing and the build up of detremental crystal within 
the cell.  I'm not an electrical engineer but I can say that it works & will 
allow a full recharge of torch batteries between dives.  It works from 240
volts 
AC or from 24 volts DC, for use on a boat.  Neither the torch nor the charger 
come cheap !!

	That's about all I've got time for right now.  I am not presently 
subscribed to techdiver (too much junk-mail).  Anyone who wants to reply to 
techdiver had better also echo a copy directly to me, if you want a response 
from me.


     Regards, Steve M.

**************************************************************************
*                                        *                               *
*    Dr. S. G. Millard,                  * E-Mail : ec96@li*.ac*.uk*       *
*    Senior Lecturer,			 *	                         *
*    Department of Civil Engineering     * Tel :    0151 794 5224 (UK) 	 *
*    University of Liverpool,            *        44 151 794 5224        *
*    PO Box 147,                         *             (International)   *
*    Liverpool L69 3BX,                  *                               *
*    UK.                                 * Fax :    0151 794 5218 (UK)   *
*                                        *        44 151 794 5218        *
*                                        *             (International)   *
*                                        *                               *
**************************************************************************

Navigate by Author: [Previous] [Next] [Author Search Index]
Navigate by Subject: [Previous] [Next] [Subject Search Index]

[Send Reply] [Send Message with New Topic]

[Search Selection] [Mailing List Home] [Home]