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On Wed, 13 Jul 1994, Carl G Heinzl wrote: > The above is an excerpt from an article by Michael Menduno that Richard > graciously published a week ago. I still have yet to hear trip reports > from others that attended the Key West Rebreather conference - Richard, > Dennis, we know *you* were there, what about others :^) I was stuck working > hard blowing bubbles in Cozumel at the time :^) I'm really not sure what I can add about the rebreather forum to what has already been posted. My impression is that there was good information exchange and people had a chance to meet & talk with other people with similar interests, but that there was very little in the way of real "tangible" results or conclusions. The biggest messages I got were: 1. Liability is the largest stumbling block to making these things available at an affordable price. 2. Capital investment is another problem for all but the big-gun companies (i.e. Draeger, Carlton, perhaps Oceanic-though they weren't represented) 3. There appear to be more companies interested in building rebreathers for sale than many of us previously believed. 4. Most folks seem to think that semi-closed systems will be the first sort of units introduced on the market on any large scale, due mostly to cost, but also to simplicity of design. I think that the forum was an EXCELLECT and NECESSARY first step towards making rebreathers available to non-military, non-commercial divers. I think the tangible answers/results will probably begin to come at the tek.95 meetings in San Francisco. > I do have a couple questions,though. Of that "40-60 hours" for a > rebreather course, how much would be theory and reading that could > be accomplished at home via a book/manual and then tested on site > versus actual hands on training??? It seems that a course such as this > could be broken down into 2 parts - a home study section and a pratical > experience section, the latter of which could possibly be a long weekend > (3-4 days?). > > During the home study, questions/etc could be handled by some type of email > arrangement or even something as simple as a BBS. I am absolutely *not* > looking forward to going to Florida (for some certifications that I plan > on taking) to spend time in a classroom to learn something that I can pick > up from a book/manual or already have knowledge of. Very good point - I don't know. I think the heavy training requirements are partly to twart liability problems, so I don't know to what extent they'd allow home-learning (i.e., if they need to cover their butts in court, they'll want to be able to say that they didn't cut any corners). Not much discussion of specifics of training, partly because (as Wings Stocks pointed out) there's not much we can discuss about training if we don't even have available units. About the only tangible thing on these lines was Hal Watts' anouncement that the PRISM would be available for demo at 40-Fathom Grotto throughout July (by appointment, I believe). Hope this helps. Aloha, Rich
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