Dive Instructor Ratio = 16/1?

[boulderjohn]

How many students do you think are here, versus how many "functioning" instructors or DM's ?

I was unable to do a reasonable count. I do know that this was not a class I would be proud to be associated with.

For PADI, here is the official ratio for OW classes:

Open Water
8:1 May add two student divers per certified assistant to a maximum of 12.​

 

[Walter]

PADI had a 16:1 ratio for confined water (pool) in 1972. Their open water ratio at the time was 10:1. The last time I checked (2002) PADI's ratio was 10:1 in the pool and 8:1 in open water.

SEI's ratio is 10:1 in the pool and 6:1 in open water.

 

[boulderjohn]

The last time I checked (2002) PADI's ratio was 10:1 in the pool and 8:1 in open water.

That's how it is today. Personally, I would never go near any of those limits. The shop with which I instructed put an assistant with you if you had 5 or more students in the pool. We did our OW in a lake with poor visibility, and we did not have more than 3-4 students per instructor.

 

[BHB ScubaTroll]

Here is the original post that sparked this thread (Because I knew the accepted ratios prior to posting, but wanted other reactions to a statement like this)

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/fl...g-sagas-blue-heron-bridge-87.html#post5945084

 

[BHB ScubaTroll]

Cooltech,
In the silting video of a class at BHB YouTube - ‪silting-instruction‬‏ , I think there are at least 12 students...there "may" be a DM or assistant ( the guy with the camera seemed to be with them), but he did not help any of the students that I could see.... This was by no means the worst class I have seen, and certainly not the largest. I just happened to be swimming along in 40 foot vis, and then saw a wall of silt in front of me--and I "investigated"

How many students do you think are here, versus how many "functioning" instructors or DM's ?

Actually, my only accurate counts come at the beginning and end of the video... I can count 6 students and what appears to be one instructor (+ one person not in the class shooting pictures). You never scanned the entire class if that was your intent. We have only this video and your perspective to deduce that there are more in the class.

It also appears to be shot mainly in 4-6' of water in what appears to be the very first time people have had gear on outside the pool (which as I remember from a number of my past students, was very "awe inspiring" to many of them. Especially if they came from a place where they had never seen or been in the ocean or ocean waters). While the skills of the students are not great, by any means, without knowing more about the class it is completely left to perspective as to the level of dive training these students are at (Except experience tells me this is their very first time in open water)

 

[danvolker]

It should be VERY EASY to take some quick shots of the big classes that wade in by the western beach area.....
I think each weekend I have been at the BHB in the last month, there have been classes with at least a dozen people---though I never thought to do a head count.....What I do remember, was these classes taking up a huge circular area, far greater than would be taken up by 4 to 6 divers....CoolTech and the other regulars must remember some of these enormous crowds of divers ( say 20 feet by 20 feet?) , obviously in classes about to shuffle out into the diving areas and commence the silting

 

[danvolker]

Actually, my only accurate counts come at the beginning and end of the video... I can count 6 students and what appears to be one instructor (+ one person not in the class shooting pictures). You never scanned the entire class if that was your intent. We have only this video and your perspective to deduce that there are more in the class.

It also appears to be shot mainly in 4-6' of water in what appears to be the very first time people have had gear on outside the pool (which as I remember from a number of my past students, was very "awe inspiring" to many of them. Especially if they came from a place where they had never seen or been in the ocean or ocean waters). While the skills of the students are not great, by any means, without knowing more about the class it is completely left to perspective as to the level of dive training these students are at (Except experience tells me this is their very first time in open water)

Unfortunately, about half of the class was behind me most of the time I was shooting. We were off the first bridge support, which you can see for a moment in the video...This is the area where there is shallow, but it gets to about 10 feet fairly quickly.
It looked to me almost as though this WAS the pool session, as the skills should have been much better AFTER a single pool session.
Some shops have a hard time finding pools they can use...hmmnnn.

 

[BHB ScubaTroll]

It should be VERY EASY to take some quick shots of the big classes that wade in by the western beach area.....
I think each weekend I have been at the BHB in the last month, there have been classes with at least a dozen people---though I never thought to do a head count.....What I do remember, was these classes taking up a huge circular area, far greater than would be taken up by 4 to 6 divers....CoolTech and the other regulars must remember some of these enormous crowds of divers ( say 20 feet by 20 feet?) , obviously in classes about to shuffle out into the diving areas and commence the silting

Yes, I always see large numbers entering the water at the same time. I have rarely seen them descend at the same time. There are usually 3, 4 or more flags per large group... To me, that says more than one group of people in that pod...

 

[BHB ScubaTroll]

Unfortunately, about half of the class was behind me most of the time I was shooting. We were off the first bridge support, which you can see for a moment in the video...This is the area where there is shallow, but it gets to about 10 feet fairly quickly.
It looked to me almost as though this WAS the pool session, as the skills should have been much better AFTER a single pool session.
Some shops have a hard time finding pools they can use...hmmnnn.

Well, as I remember it, BHB qualifies as a pool session based on the required standards set by most organizations I am aware of, so it very possibly could be the first "pool" session

 

[boulderjohn]

It looked to me almost as though this WAS the pool session, as the skills should have been much better AFTER a single pool session.
Some shops have a hard time finding pools they can use...hmmnnn.

That was my thought as well. The site is too shallow to qualify for OW instruction. Open water can be used for the confined water portion of the class if it meets the following conditions:

Confined open water is an open water site that offers swimmingpool-like conditions with respect to clarity, calmness, and depth.

It has both shallow water and water sufficiently deep to allow student divers to meet all skill performance requirements.​