Right or Wrong?

[Charlie99]

so you are saying that this was a badly disguised troll??

I find it hard to believe that this situation would occur.

Having seen some dive shop organized trips, I'm not so disbelieving. I've seen stranger things.

Normally, I stay as far away as possible from dive shop led trips in resort areas, but have several times shared a boat with them for night dives. There always seems to be a huge excess of egos.

 

[Walter]

Cave and Wreck are not interchangeable. They have similar skills, but the knowledge set for one is different from the other. A Wreck diver is not automatically qualified to penetrate caves and a Cave diver is not automatically qualified to penetrate wrecks. I learned this the hard way many years ago when making a wreck penetration with a cave instructor. He nearly died because he did not understand the differences between caves and wrecks. It would not take a Cave diver long to learn the differences and his skills would serve him well in wrecks.

 

[H2Andy]

The opening chapter of Deep Descent talks about an incident like this, about a cave diver's first and last dive on the Andrea Doria.

I believe you mean John Ormsby. He was on his first deep wreck dive
on the Doria. On that dive:

1. He got tangled on the traverse line, and had to be disentangled

2. He then sped below to keep his timetable on the wreck

3. Going too fast into the wreck, he probably aimed for a portruding bulkhead
to stop himself; instead, he got a hold of electrical cables

4. The cables pulled loose and dropped on him. He then plummetted down
the deck and landed on another diver, knocking her to the bottom.

5. He couldn't untangle himself, probably because his "suicide clips" caught
on the cable. When found, he was described as "a fork that someone has
stuck in spaghetti and spun around."

apparnetly, cave diving didn't prepare this diver for the man-made
entanglement hazzards in wrecks. i say "apparently" because it's not
clear to me whether Ormsby was really a certified cave diver or not, or
what his level was. This was 1985.

 

[Spectre]

3.Do you think it would be ok to take a wreck diver cavern diving?

I think there is a general assumption being made in your opinion, an assumption that I personally have not seen to be the case. I've not looked much into wreck courses; but I have taken one. I took a wreck class after my cavern class. My opinion was that the wreck class was a very small subset of what I learned in my Cavern class. I also mean that as a true subset in regards to skills and procedures; there wasn't one thing that was wreck specific.

Now perhaps there are wreck classes out there where the distinct wreck specific techniques are covered; but that wasn't my experience.

Now, if there is a wreck course out there that I feel is equivalent to a cavern course it would be different; but I've not seen any examples of that.

edit after reading Andy's post:

I by no means intend to imply that a cave diver can jump into wrecks and go full tilt into it without previous experience in the environment... not necessarily training; but rather have experience with boats, with being around wrecks, etc. i.e. you shouldn't be going in a wreck on your first ever ocean dive; regardless of your skill set.

 

[jbisjim]

Initially it is my fault, everything else seems to be......

Seriously I agree with OneBrightGator

Neither, the cave diver made the mistake of not discussing his diving plans and certifications with the instructor (DM, charter, capt, owner, whoever) before booking the trip.

This is exactly what happens, the industry is not holding themselves accountable to certification and limitations yet we state if you want to do this type of diving you need the card

If the industry want to maintain credability they have to hold themselves accountable and ask for the Card. No Card

However... Card collecting does not mean your a good diver either. We all know divers who have lots of cards and are ok divers or even less than ok divers. Am I going to be told not to dive if I dont have fish identification.(extreme example). I have seen diver who have "The Card" but can not dive to the level of "the card"

I can argue both, but the industry needs to have a we card sign. I don't have to like it, but I think it will happen.
/end2cents

 

[mavjax]

I can argue both, but the industry needs to have a we card sign. I don't have to like it, but I think it will happen.
/end2cents

I agree. Self regulation within the industry is far better than being subjected to government regulation which will vary as we all travel. As noted above, the key is to get to a point where the instructors actually require students be at least as strong as the card they are being awarded, otherwise it is meaningless and back to card collecting.

The card should be an entry point, the log book proof of experience, and if required a checkout dive to make sure the skills are real and more importantly current.

 

[Kim]

And since many of you feel that a cavern certification would give you the skill set to dive a wreck, at least some wrecks

3.Do you think it would be ok to take a wreck diver cavern diving?

As I think that I was the only one who said anything about caverns to this point, I think you misunderstood me. The IANTD Eanx Overhead Environment cert applies equally to caverns and wrecks - this means to say that you are taught how to penetrate either to visible light limits using a line. Depending on the penetration involved the card covers both. My point, however, was that I do not remember any specific training that was only applicable to one of the environments. There were discussions about the differences of each with regard to the types of hazards and accidents that could occur but nothing which was a really different procedure such as 'In a cave we do X because.........but in a wreck we do Y because.......'
Like Mike said - I presume you are talking about technical wreck certs right? Something like a PADI wreck cert doesn't even cover lines as far as I know - presumably that kind of cert shouldn't allow anyone to penetrate anything - wreck or cavern.
At a technical level though - and please correct me if I'm wrong - it seems that the only differences that exist are those of environment. Given that generally cave penetrations can be a lot longer from point of entry/exit than most wrecks I would think that normally the room for error in caves is higher than wrecks - so the training has to be tighter.

Certainly a certified caver would have the skill set to dive most wrecks, but not all wrecks.

Which kind of wrecks would need more/different skills?
Again, surely this is a question of practicing already learned skills to gain experience and to work up to any given dive, rather than learning completely new skills. In the same way that I doubt that a newly certified full cave diver will go right out and dive Wakulla to the limits of the penetration distances, I also doubt that a new Tech wreck diver will head straight for the Doria.

 

[Dive-aholic]

...Something like a PADI wreck cert doesn't even cover lines as far as I know - presumably that kind of cert shouldn't allow anyone to penetrate anything - wreck or cavern...

The basic PADI wreck cert doesn't, but PADI does allow instructors to teach lines and basic penetration in that course. Unfortunately, the card doesn't differentiate, so there's no telling what someone with that card has actually done other than reviewing the log book.

 

[MikeFerrara]

The basic PADI wreck cert doesn't, but PADI does allow instructors to teach lines and basic penetration in that course. Unfortunately, the card doesn't differentiate, so there's no telling what someone with that card has actually done other than reviewing the log book.

Unfortunately, there's no requirement that an instructor have any overhead training prior to teaching this class. If an instructor has issued 25 certs and claims to have logged 20 wreck dives (penetration or not) they can send in a check and be cleared to teach the wreck class...complete with lines and penetration. You and your instructor could do your very first wreck penetration together! Aint that a comforting thought?

If the class is taught with penetration there is only one actual penetration dive (which often takes place in a school bus in a quarry around here). The class is nowhere near as comprehensive as a cavern class where line work on land, in the water and at least three penetration dives are required. The class also doesn't require nearly the same level of technique mastery (like antisilting) which at least if not more important in a wreck than in a cave/cavern.

As far as I know the best bet for some one wanting to dive at this level is a cavern class with a cave instructor who also dives wrecks and then hang out with some wreck divers.

Now days there are some real wreck classes and I know a couple of very experienced wreck divers who teach them. They're essentially technical level classes and probably also a good way to get aquainted with wreck diving in the area where the class is done. Like the rest of this stuff though, the more popular/commercial it gets the more caution you'll need to excersize in order to find an instructor who is a real wreck diver. If they are anybody in the local wreck diving community they will be known and IMO, like a good cave class, it's not generally something that you can walk into a dive shop and expect to find. Most of these guys aren't hanging out in dive shops.

I don't know how these classes compare with cave training as far as skills and the number of dives. A cave class though requires I think a minimum of 16 dives 15 of which are in a cave and at least one in OW. Maybe some one like Dopler will step in with some info.

 

[grazie42]

I´ve seen several people asking what a "real" wreck course would entail that is different from a cavern/cave-course. I don´t know as I´m currently "on the other side of the fence". I´ve been asking myself (and others) the same question but in the opposite direction and all I´ve gotten back is "it will make you a better diver". Perhaps some of you cavers could follow THIS link, turn to page 79 (and onwards) and let us know what you think...
http://www.iantd.com/standards/IANTD_Standards_2003.pdf