As a BSAC Dive Leader I'm currently working for my Advanced, however I'm at the moment in Ontario Canada, so its on hold. General procedures in the UK in my experience vary a great deal. Having attend a number of national courses, I find that even at National Diving Officer level many different practices are apparent. As I mentioned in my earlier post, I use a delayed Surface Marker Buoy for ascents. In the normal course of events, its never unclipped from my BC. All things remaining equal, we descend by grapple/shot line(VERY VERY rarely by anchor... the Diving Officer gets really miffed if the RIB comes back without its anchor). This line consists of approximately 100m of polyprop(about 1/2" I think), about 3m of heavy guage chain and a four pronged grappling hook, which has an approximate breaking point of lots...! The weak point has been found to be the line, we lost one grapple in very choppy seas when we assume it was rubbing over the edge of the wreck. As such the length of chain has been increased. The majority of the diving done in the club would be in the 40m range, the divers all have fully redundant air systems. Most have a 15l as primary and a 7l as pony. The regs tend to be US Divers Pro Supremes, Poseiden Jetstreams,Poseiden Cyclons, Oceanic Omega and the like... My own system has a 15l/US Pro S and 7l/Jetstream setup. Most of our diving is around Rathlin Island, for those who may be familiar with it, although we do dive 'other' wrecks in the West of Ireland, and 'selective' wrecks in Scotland. Divers are, to the best of my knowledge, diving on Aladin Pro's although one uses and older Aladin and one an Oceanic something or other.. The normal dive procedure, for my club, is to hook into the wreck with the grapple, or in days gone by with a 56(.. a 56lb lead weight .. a real pain to worth with but hey we didn't have an echo sounder then...). Having hooked the wreck, the RIB would be anchored, and if emergency arose the shot/grapple line is attached to a float and would be dumped overboard, and the emergency dealt with... divers recalled etc... If due to tidal changes or unforseen circumstances divers missed the shot when the dive was up, they'd surface to around 20m whilst getting the delayed SMB ready for use. These would then be deployed and the divers could safely complete descompression , the boat cover now beeing fully aware of their position and responding accordingly. Yes for some wreck dives a reel is deployed but primarily to mark exit/entry points into the wrecks, or on occasion to mark the divers, as would be the norm. Should the dive experience an DSMB problem we all carry Polar Bear lifting bags, and I can recall one occasion when a lifting bag brought a 'burst' DSMB to the surface.(Apparently the DSMB had been deployed, and then fallen with a rip back to the divers... it had not been over inflated). Our lifting bags have typically around 4m of rope on them, so couldn't be used instead of the DSMB. Viz tends to be less than 5m(turpid due to sand etc),I've had viz in inches... NOT RECOMMENDED.. its not really any fun... current can be 5 Knots at times(or more). The dive boat(s) tend to have 4-6 divers diving in pairs one pair returning before the other enters, always one pair in boat as 'safety' cover. RIBs have O2, Radio etc onboard, and the knowledge to use them, as well as parachute inshore/offshore flares.. since we dive at both distances from shore. Should you have any other queries or whatever, by almeans ask.. My Nothern Divers Compressed Neoprene is flameproof...8+)
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