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To: techdiver@aquanaut.com
Date: Sun, 14 Dec 1997 21:27:05 -0500
Subject: wahoo safety record
From: wahoo-capt.janet@ju*.co* (janet bieser)
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To: will@tr*.co*, techdiver@aqunaut.com
Cc: wahoo2001@ao*.co*
Date: Sat, 13 Dec 1997 15:11:17 -0500
Subject: Re: wahoo safety record
Message-ID: <19971213.154603.10014.1.wahoo-capt.janet@ju*.co*>
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From: wahoo-capt.janet@ju*.co* (janet bieser)

will....... worse safety record compared to who ? YOU ?

	 this summer you may have heard the sailboat calling us when matt
ore did a 50 minute drifting decompression after his second dive of the
day . the dive was on the hilton  castle about 90ish feet deep . matt
sent up no lift bag , was solo diving and ended up quite a way down
current (mild current ) .
	 drifting decos are not the normal method in the northeast ,
occasionally someone may send up a lift bag and tie it off on the
wreckage if they can not find the anchor line  or even just drift with a
bag on the surface 
..	 there is a good chance that if you do a drifting decompression
with no bag , safety sausage or other indicator that you will drift away
and the dive boat will not see you . next stop... england .... Very
dangerous  
	 I commonly dive (taking turns with an other captain ) and spend
two to three hours under water , some bottom times are over an hour.
Many( most ) of my crew and customers do long dives like this too. so
there was no reason to assume that there was a problem when matt was
underwater for two hours. If he had tied a line off everything would have
been normal ( had a reel ). I even somtimes shoot a bag and hang on a
reel  so my neophite customes wont kick the heck out of me , or drag me
off my depth on the way down for their second dive or when they do their
safety stop .
	we have a" sign in sheet " like all the other dive boats here in
the northeast , and we check each individual person out so we can be
certain that everyone is back before we leave the wreck   . just like
every one else here in the north east    ( by the way  the coast guard
requires you to check people on and off the boat even if they are going
onto land or on a dock )However we do not check air pressures( except to
be sure air is turned on ) , enforce no deco limit diving ( hypocrisy
every one knows we do extended range trips ),or force people to dive
together that don't want to . we just ask everyone to plan on being back
aboard at a specific time so we can get back to the dock in time for
.....fills ,  other charters , etc. 
	Matt had not exceeded the "be back aboard " time and other people
were still diving  so there was no reason to suspect trouble . I think we
had about thirty divers that day ( a little crowded) 
	I think it is unreasonable to berate me or any captain for this.
If divers insist on sneaking away under water . The only control i have
over people is not to take them diving if they insist on unsafe practices
..I cant tie a rope on each diver and winch him up when times up .  
	The other incident i think you are making reference to is the sal
nobel incident . This happened many years ago . We have taken steps to
make sure it cant happen again This is what i recall about the incident.
	 He kind of snuck aboard . we had two groups,  three or four
people  in each group.  A light load for the wahoo . we went to my
favorite wreck  the oregon , 80 to 128 feet deep .we stayed there for two
dives . since we don't take walk-on's sal claimed to be part of one of
the groups , each of which provided its own dive master.
	several things went wrong to cause the incident  to be able to
occur . 1) one person did not sign in   ( this threw off the total count
)  2) we asked each dive master if all of their group was aboard ( sal
was not in ether group ) 3) we did a" head count" instead of individually
speaking to each person and checking his name off ( the count was off )
4) sal did not return before the departure time , did not return to the
anchor line to decompress and did not  send up a bag. He tied a line to
the bottom and decompressed with up tension on his line .( it got quite
choppy so we did not see bubbles ) SO we left .....about 40 minutes after
we asked everyone to be back . and sal got left in the ocean
.....fortunately a sport fisherman picked him up shortly after he surfaced
.. 
	What we did to make sure this never happens again is to ALWAYS
speak to each person and check  them off our own  sign in sheet . never
use a head count as a departure count  , never take the word of the
instructor or dive master of a group that all there people are back,
Double check the sign in sheet count with separate crew counting to be
sure we have everyone . 
	I think the wahoo's safety record is very good , considering the
exposure we have . The thousands of divers we take each season , in
challenging conditions the open real ocean , not  shallow calm clear
caribbean waters one mile off the beach. 99% of all the dives are in 110
feet of cold water or greater.

	It is easy for people to be highly vocal critics if they do not
understand the scale of the operation . I conduct more man-dives in one
weekend than most small charterboats do in a season .  William  conduct
10,000 man-dives in similar water  and let's  see your record of
incidents.  
	
On Sat, 13 Dec 1997 02:15:24 -0500 (EST) "William M. Smithers"
<will@tr*.co*> writes:
>
>Janet, 
>
>This is good advice, but your dive boat still has the
>single worst safety record of any in the NorthEast.
>
>(check the Coast Guard records).
>
>Let's see now, I think it was *twice* this summer
>that I heard over the radio "Wahoo, wahoo, we have
>one of your divers".
>
>I'm not even going to mention the time a couple years
>back that you guys forgot to do a head count and left 
>a guy hanging on a bouy miles out to sea.  Oh, nevermind, 
>I guess I just did.
>
>That said, I'm sure you have taken measures to make sure this
>matter gets cleaned up.  Would you care to detail them for
>the techdiving public?
>
>-Will
>
>
>On Fri, 12 Dec 1997, janet bieser wrote:
>
>> eric,
>> 
>> one of the most important things is to make sure you can comfortably
>> preform your decompression stops at the end of your dive when your 
>air
>> tanks are relatively empty and more buoyant . If you are too buoyant 
>to
>> decompress you will be miserable and struggling to stay down may 
>mess up
>> your decompression , and will increase your gas consumption .All 
>those
>> huge lungs fulls of air as you struggle just  makes you more bouyant 
>and
>> aggravates the situation.
>>  you want to be able to keep enough air or argon in the dry suit so 
>you
>> stay warm . the whole point to having a dry suit is the insulation 
>from
>> the cold water that the gas in the suit gives you . the more 
>"fluffed up"
>> you are the warmer you will stay ......but you have to balance the 
>need
>> to swim against the maximum inflation of the suit . how bulky do you 
>want
>> to be ? all that air needs lead or steel back plates, tanks  and  
>light
>> battery packs  to drag it down .
>>  In the real world  everyone dives slightly overweigted so that they 
>can
>> be certain they have enough negativeness to decompress and keep a 
>good
>> amount of air in their  suit . you compensate for the extra weight 
>at the
>> start of the dive by adding air to your buoyancy compensator and to 
>your
>> suit . dump air from the buoyancy compensator as the tanks get 
>lighter .
>> keep as much gas in the suit as is comfortable to swim with and keep 
>warm
>>  
>>  It takes some practice to avoid filling up your feet with air and
>> getting dragged to the surface be careful , you may need to buy new 
>finns
>> to fit over your dry suit boots , you may want to use ankle weights 
>as
>> part of the additional weight especially at first to help prevent 
>the
>> blown up feet syndrome .  practice somewhere safe .  good luck 
>> --
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>> 
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