Certification madness or reasonable requirements?

netmage

Not all agencies specify the distinction of a CCR..., notably the NACD and NAUI...

yves

Indeed reasonable, just have a look out of the position of the responsible dive centre or dive master letting you dive without a specific cert...all ok when nothing happens, but if....
And let's be honest that there is a big task loading on a bail out situation on ccr, especially when deeper then -60m it needs a cool head, not to speak about difference between training and the real bail out...I had a student with a full flood at -70m during an adv. tmx ccr course, he now understood why he was trained with 'no mercy' and my hart beat was faster then during my long time ago experiences at car racing
(The membrane of his adv was split in two...)
So a cert is one thing, and keeping the skills is staying alive after 100 hours of diving a unit with not one problem.
Greets,
Yves

lizardland

In theory, a good idea, they're covering they're arses. In practice, it's a pain. I don't have any CCR certs apart from an IANTD Rebreather cert from 1995 which involved a 15min pool dive and 2hrs of lectures I've been diving trimix and caves since I bought my rebreather (2nd ever dive on it was in a shallow cave, 3rd ever dive was another at 60m) and three years down the line I've no intention of doing a course in either. As a result, I only dive in places that either don't ask or don't care -- very few UK boats will ever ask for certs, similarly there are very few European caves where certs are checked either.

I'm all for personal responsibility but unfortunately not everyone sees it that way. I've seen enough people though that don't seem to grasp that they (and not their equipment, instructors, insurers, skippers, etc) are responsible for their safety. And unfortunately, the lowest common denominator is what sets the standard for everyone.

__________________
Can you imagine drifting along in the sea with your mouth open and a load of f***ing plankton going in? You'd like it, would you?

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Azerbaijani Association of Technical Divers Publicity Officer and Goat Wrangler

Ben Field

Another angle...

You have a family, so you have life insurance to support them if the worse happens, your insurance (probably) only pays out if you dive within your qualifications....

You save $1000 bucks on a cert card but your wife and kids go without the million bucks they needed to finish college, pay the morgage etc.

Yeah it sucks- I'm OC Trimix qualified and am abit miffed at having to drop another grand or so getting a card but I figure I'll have a week away diving with a good instructor, treat it like a holiday, enjoy myself and put the costs aside... afterall if its difficult then I really wasn't ready and needed the training more than I thought, if its easy- well then its easy and I get some diving done- no great lose.

IMVHO

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Beware Fridge Suck

lizardland

I've no insurance

If insurers don't want to pay out then they'll find a way. I'm sure the lack of CE approval would come into it somewhere as well and that's something I can do nothing about short of changing rebreather and there is no CE approved unit I'd want.

If I die on my OC bailout then am I diving within my certification limits? Note to self...

__________________
Can you imagine drifting along in the sea with your mouth open and a load of f***ing plankton going in? You'd like it, would you?

www.westons-cider.co.uk

Azerbaijani Association of Technical Divers Publicity Officer and Goat Wrangler

netmage

Is there 5 days of material...? As you move up the upper levels of diver training, there is a lot of bleed over...

How many times should one start from scratch...?
Training agencies and Instructors need to have the flexibility to cross people over w/ minimal hassle/overlap...

MarcLaukien

It's not just about the money. It's also about time. Do you know how many courses I took in the last three years? I think on average, it was 1.5 weeks per year. At some point, I just want to dive, and not spend my vacation doing yet another class (with 80% of the time being spent on repeating what I have already done in prior classes).

Tienuts

To play devil's advocate here, keep in mind, some of these tech and CCR resorts attract all sorts of wing-nuts who will attempt to dive beyond their training and experience. Trust me, we see plenty of them here. The resort is just trying to cover their own asses.

Not too long ago, a guy walked in and asked for all sorts of OC trimix and deco gasses. We start getting reports from other diver's and boat captains this guy is diving without a deco plan or profile, and he has no gas management whatsoever. On 2 dives, he ended up taking, (yes taking) bailout from nearby CCR divers, as he had run out of his own deco gas. His runtime? What runtime, I'll just go up when the other divers go up.

Turns out, the guy's trimix card was fraudulent. Now obviously this example doesn't really apply in this discussion, but my point is there are some real nut-bags out there who try all kinds of stunts, and I'm sure this resort has seen their fair share, and are just taking steps to prevent more of them, as much as it sucks for those who are competent, safe divers.

MarcLaukien

If somebody fakes certification cards, and shows complete incompetence, and then an accident happens, do you really think that any court in the world would overrule the waiver he had to sign? Do we perhaps soon need cert cards with biometric data and a central registry with fingerprints before somebody is allowed to dive?

Also, isn't there a danger that more people will start faking their certs and lie about their logged hours, because resorts don't accept the certs they already have? For example, I could probably have sneaked into Cobalt by simply making up a false dive log for my HH CCR, thereby circumventing the idiotic rule that my logged hours reset to zero after switching from the Optima to the HH.

PhilSiswick

From debates about this on other lists a few years ago, I remember that this is one of those interesting differences between the UK and the US. Here in the UK, as I understand it, if the Dive Centre asks you to state your qual on a form or verbally and you lie, you are liable. If they check your cert card and it is fake, they are liable, as they didn't spot it. So, in my experience, apart from actually buying gas, I am never asked to show my quals.

Bingo - I am sure that it does happen. How would anyone be able to verify your log anyway, even if they tried?

I can understand your pain. It's very frustrating and I do believe that, while it has some merits, the cert approach past Mod 1 is flawed and likely/certain to lead to abuse. If it's objectives are to improve safety, then it must be revised.

Cheers,

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Phil

No comment on open circuit... it's an evolutionary dead end not really worth discussing here. Dave Sutton, 2007

I have always felt that the dive I am on is not nearly important as the dives I plan to be on the rest of my life. Tom Rose, 2007

www.hugsac.org.uk