Proper way to tie off to wreck bouy?

[moneysavr]

Just need to know what are the basic rules /Common sense ,If your come on to a dive site with a bouy tied to wreck site -that is lets say set or seasonal , and 1 dive boat is on site,Divers may be in or out of water,but dive flag is posted.
1. Can you cut power on boat up wind,drift in to site,place diver in water to tie off to bouy?and safely secure boat away from other boat?
2 . hold off dives until divers from other boat make contact/or exit water.
Thanks to any and all charter captains that can help.
Brad

 

[bug]

I am not a captain but from my expirence I have seen it go both ways. I had a fairly long discussion with a captain about this type of question. For example on the Speigle Grove (and many other sites obviously - just using it as an example) there are a limited number of moorings. So when the boat leaves the shop in the morning they make sure that they tell the divers that the boat leaves PROMPTLY at 8am. This way they are one of the first to get to the site and can pick their favorite mooring.

Now when 8:30 - 9 am rolls around the place is mobbed and there are boats waiting just off the wreck site for a mooring to open up. However (and this is where a captian would know more) I don't think there are any laws on this, but it is up to the person that is tied directly to the mooring line to allow or not allow another boat to hot drop the divers on that mooring line and then back off the site. Then to piggyback off of them. Meaning boat 2 ties to boat 1.

The captain I was speaking to about this said that once (a long while back) allowed another boat to hot drop the divers. And he said that he will NEVER allow that to happen near him again.

The short version of the story is: 6 Divers ready to go in the water. 2 go in and go right to the bottom. 2 more go in and one slips on the back of the boat, hits her head and is knocked out at the surrface. Now they had to wait for the two other divers to surface before they could get her back to land.

So I think it is a bad situation and I can see why the captian does not want to get involved in something like that. He said from that day he would never allow that to happen on or near is mooring line.

 

[Walter]

You approach at dead idle with a lookout watching the water immediately ahead of the boat for divers on the surface or under water.

 

[bradb21]

If there is already a boat on the site, you should approach with caution, but keep your distance. Call the boat that is at the site on your marine radio (Ch 16), your will probably do a channel switch after contacting the boat. Ask the captain if he has any divers in the water or how he wants you to proceed. He'll tell you how to proceed. Some sites have multiple moorings, and he may tell you to proceed in and tie off on one of those, or if there is only one mooring he may let you tie off to his boat. He may have divers in the water and may not want you to come in, so you should obey. The bottom line is you should always contact the boat on your marine radio and ask.

 

[JimC]

Its very common around here to have multiple boats on moorings.

They keystorm can look like a flotila some days with 4 or 5 boats on each of the 2 moorings.

 

[FreeFloat]

Heh, and if the weather's blowing you get pretty much every dive boat in Kingston tied off to the Wolfe islander II in a similar manner.

Yes, as bradb21 stated, first step is to contact the boat(s) which are already tied off.

Interesting side note: Jim: last week when we got to I think it was the America, there was an unattended boat tied off to one of the moorings! What a big no-no! I hope our skipper gave them hell when they surfaced from their dive. (In that case he made a judgement call and tied off to them anyway)