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In a message dated 8/31/99 7:09:53 PM Eastern Daylight Time, klind@al*.ne* writes: > Regardless of whether divers use a Jersey up line, one thing I don't understand is why NE dive boats don't carry chase boats. Here in Alaska it's standard practice to carry a skiff or inflatable and you rarely see a commercial fishing boat or pleasure boat that doesn't have a skiff on board or inflatable tied on the roof. The extreme tides and lack of piers in most areas pretty much requires that you use a skiff anytime you want to go ashore. I think you answered your question, you need a small boat just to get to your dive boat. In the North East tides rarely run greater then 6' (Bay of Fundy excepted). So we do not need a skiff to get on, we just walk on from the dock. Current on the near shore wrecks are rarely greater then 1-2 knots. Off shore, we do get stronger currents and then most if not all of the larger boats will carry a chase boat. Now back to the near shore, 90-99% of all charter boat dives are on only a few wrecks. In the NY RI area the most popular tend to be the USS San Diego, RMS Oregon, U-853, and USS Bass. The deepest of all these wrecks is the Bass at 160'. We just do not have many charter boat dives on the deeper wrecks, you cannot make it pay for more then 2-3 special trips per year. Now a typical weekend day of diving on the San Diego you will find 2-4 large charter boat putting in 12-20 divers each. Even on the U-853 it is not uncommon to see 3 6-packs on moorings with 1-2 boat circulating waiting for a spot. Would you want live boats with that many divers on a wrecks 300'- 600' long? If we were to start using live main boats and chase boats we will kill more divers with propellers then we ever lost. As for further off wrecks like the Doria or Republic, yes you need a chase boat because you are most likely the only boat within 10-20 miles, the current can be greater, and the DECO longer. And to close, in all my years of wreck diving on both coasts the only time I was ever on a charter boat that was live was in Puget Sound and they stayed live because they could not anchor in on the steep walls. All other charter boats were anchored in, that's in New England, Canada, NY, NJ, DE, MD, VA, NC, SC, FL, CA, and WA. Only on a few occasions have we cut free after all divers were on the DECO line under the boat, and that was in NC when the current was ripping on the surface but not on the bottom. So lets see: More divers, on typically shallower wrecks, low current, with less deco time required - why wouldn't you tie in? Now all of this will change with private boats where you will see a lot of free drift etc. but it is the exception. Pete Johnson -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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