Certification madness or reasonable requirements?

Ben Field

Hmm, 1.5 weeks of courses per year... well luckily you must be able to go from one set of pre-req's to another in less than a year- if only I had that much time and money to dive! It's been 2years since my last course... I've been doing lots of diving in between, so I now have the skills to do the next step (hopefully)

I feel your pain I really do but I also think this is the wrong place to argue about it- because, mostly we're going to agree

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MarcLaukien

If this is the wrong place, where else should I argue about it?

Oh well, enough whining... I'm looking forward to two days of cave diving next week... provided, of course that no cave police pulls me over and gives me a ticket because I cave-dive with an OC cave certification instead of a CCR cave certification

yves

A cross over from one unit to the other takes 4 hours of diving and about the samefor explaining the unit, so if it takes more then two days there are a few options:
1) the first education is completly forgotten
2) you were buying the first certification instead of earning it
3) still narked from deep air diving before the cross over
greets
Yves
adv.tmx ccr IT

MarcLaukien

This is nonsense. When I switched over from the Optima to the HH, I explored the options available. In the end, it was a five days of training. I could perhaps have shortened it by a day or so if a cross-over would have been authorized, but it wasn't worth the trouble, so in the end, I did the whole thing.

I had neither forgotten my prior training, nor was I buying my prior training. I hope you were not serious about this, because what you write is quite insulting.

Also, just for the record: I very much enjoyed my HH class with Joe Radomski, and it was a lot of fun. Joe is a great instructor, and I definitely learned a lot from him. However, if you ask me whether a full week was really necessary, then I think my honest answer would be that it could have been done in three days. In the end, I didn't really mind the extra days on this trip, because I was only planning recreational-depth dives on this vacation anyway. However, if I go to the Cayman islands again, I definitely don't want to do recreational depths only...

MarcLaukien

Also, I didn't start this thread because I thought that a cross-over training is not necessary. I think a cross-over is a good idea. The issues are:

• Your prior logged hours don't count after switching from one rebreather to a similar one.
• A prior Normoxic Trimix OC certification doesn't count. I would have to do a complete Normoxic Trimix CCR course. (But only after accumulating 50 hours on the new unit first.)

This is the information I got from Cobalt, who teach TDI and IANTD.

So let's stay on topic please. I don't think anyone doubts that a cross-over course is unreasonable.

Tienuts

You missed my point Mark. The point not about faking c-cards, it was to illustrate the crazy people in the world are not just hanging on inner city streets babbling to themselves. Some of them lurk on dive boats in doubles and CCR's too.

There are people diving with completely valid c-cards for all sorts of things they should not be diving. I know a CCR instructor who has no business instructing others, (no not you Howard or Mark ) much less DIVING a CCR.

Getting back to the issues - it could be their insurance mandates this. Or they threw a dart at some numbers on the wall, and 50 is what they hit. Or it could be, that some divers still look like ass in the water after 50 hours on their unit(s.) It sucks for a competent, experienced diver.

Quiescence, in the Key's wouldn't let me dive the Spiegel with a reel and a light, since they assumed I would penetrate the wreck. I didn't like that. So I don't give them my business anymore.

yves

There is no meaning in insulting anybod, and these are no nosens :

This is the full course....
18. TDI – Mixed Gas Closed Circuit Rebreather, Unit Specific- Inspiration / Evolution, KISS, Optima, Megalodon
TDI Instructor Manual
Date: 10/27/2006
Revision: 7.0
18.6 Course Structure and Duration
Open Water Execution:
1. Minimum of three hundred sixty (360) minutes open water training to be completed over a minimum of six (6) dives including one (1) equipment configuration and drills practice air diluent dive to a maximum one hundred thirty (130) fsw / forty (40) msw.
2. All subsequent dives to build incrementally in no greater than thirty three (33) fsw / ten (10) msw steps.
3. Only one (1) dive is on air diluent all others are to be mixed gas dives.
4. All mixed gas dives are to be deeper than one hundred thirty (130) fsw / forty (40) msw utilizing a mixed gas diluent containing sixteen (16%) percent or greater oxygen.
5. Four (4) dives must be decompression dives.
Course Structure:
1. TDI allows instructors to structure courses according to the number of students participating and their skill level.
2. The exam may be given orally if not available in a language the student understands.
Duration:
1. Minimum of six (6) hours for academic development and a further two (2) hours for equipment configuration workshop.

Special note; If the diver is already open circuit trimix certified, six (6) dives and three hundred sixty (360) minutes is still required.

I had the idea the smiley said it all, some humor in this cruel world is nice from time to time

MarcLaukien

Perhaps I'm reading it all wrong, but I don't see how what you wrote above backs up your claim that you can cross over from one CCR to a different one in two days or less.

yves

Hey Marc, I don't claim anything, just copy paste out of the standards.
I understood you didn't have a TMX CCR cert so I posted in this case a FULL course on mixed gas.
A cross over on mod 1 is 4 hours owd , nothing wrong by doing two dives a day I gues, and in between there is some time left to go over the unit, have done one last week in the Red sea (by the standards) but didn't cover all the items indeed as we where to busy playing with the camelion, a revo and other toys.So your right It can take longer!
I don't have the time anymore to check cross over on tmx ccr now as I'm going for some diving now, and need to drive a few 100km.

Cheers
yves

si_b_lanzarote

what you are requesting is impossible, you are requesting allowance be made for your prior experience and circumstances with regards your crossover ... i dont know you, you may be the worlds most competant diver or a complete f**kwit, and thus the agencies have introduced standards to eliminate the need for me to means test every diver who enters my establishment, you either have the prerequisites or you dont. if you dont then we dont even need to get wet!

look at it this way, you might be the most competant diver in the world and be a "good lad" but your not the problem...its your family! thats who a dive operator needs to worry about...

lets go down this scenario..say you do a mixed gas dive in a cave with minimum crossover time as we have decided in your case things were "nearly" the same, and heaven forbid you have a disaster, your insurance company (which incidentaly, having a lack of isn't something to brag about, especially if your preceding breathe lamented the fact you dive uncertified with mixed gas, it doesn't show a responsible approach to CCR diving for some of the nexcomers...enough ill save that for a different thread)..any way your insurance company will see a hole due to lack of cave training and possibly due to minimal crossover training, and please remember this is hypothetical, whether i agree with it or not is irrelivant, but the bottom line is they wont pay! and will probably say... "sorry mrs X no money for you" mrs X wont think,"oh what a tragedy i'll miss him! but weren't the boys down the local dive centre good lads by allowing Mr X to commit to this dive, i must buy them a crate of beer," she will probably think "where am i going to find X juniors college money!" and will go after the dive centre legally.

and in the court one of the first questions will be...how "nearly the same" were these units?... unfortunately you who thought they were "very much the same" and would possibly put forward a good case, aren't around!

So you might agree if you were in the dive centres position, lack of certification means no gas and maybe no cave diving, so you need a crossover and if you were the agency, you would agree a standard needs to cover EVERYONE in one fell swoop, and this always means "overkill" for the diver with good skill retention.

either way you would probably go next door to a centre that "turns a blind eye", and in turn i would lose your custom, but on the otherhand i thankfully lose the potential of having my pants pulled down and being anally raped by Mrs X's law team.

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