No scuba cave diving!

Actually, this title is misleading, as I'm extremely libertarian and endorse the idea of anyone being allowed to dive anyway they damned well please as long as the fully accept the risks involved, but...
I think it's instructive to compare certain recreational and commercial protocols. The commercial diver will not make a penetration without certain surface support in place. On a common shallow job, such as a power plant water intake (where blueprints are available and virtually everything is known about the structure), there will be at minimum, unlimited surface-supplied air in the form of a compressor and backup in the form of a backup compressor and/or HP flasks. That diver will be tended and have constant communication with the surface. He will also be tended/supported by a #2 diver who tends his umbilical at the point of penetration and has his own topside tender. These divers will wear hats (helmets) to provide impact protection and uninterupted air supply. Also, there will be a standby diver and tender and a dive supervisor. If there's any depth involved, there will also be a double lock DDC on site, with associated O2 and possibly additional personnel.
All this just to maybe clean out some mussels or other marine growth or do an inspection. Is all this practical for cave divers? Maybe not, but it might be instructive to compare approaches and borrow at least some of it.
As a former commercial diver, I was trained to avoid certain scuba scenarios which are popular in the recreational community. Penetrations of any sort -- including wrecks -- in scuba is one of the basic things commercial divers learn to avoid.
I am fully aware that cave diver scuba training has improved dramatically over the years, but it still does not address the basic concept that the tools, i.e. scuba, are not appropriate to the job at hand.
I think there might be a market for surface supplied recreational diving and a lot of the basic gear would be in financial reach of a club. Maybe you can't have a DDC available, but I guarantee there'd be far fewer cave and wreck scuba fatalities if the victims had been on the end of an umbilical!
Hey, I'm ready for your flames, and don't get me wrong; I personally LIKE scuba, but it's a technology -- like every technology -- that has inherent limits. Pointing this out is not in the financial interests of certain segments of the sport diving industry.

Best regards
Doc

what I am talking about

But I am going to point out a couple of things anyway.
The vast majority of cave fatalities are from non-cave trained open water divers getting in way over their head.

It doesn't seem to me like surface supplied air would work for any deep penetration, how much hose can a diver really drag out? And what are the chances of the hose getting cut up on the rocks, or atleast stirring up silt, most caves aren't exactly as straight as a water pipe.

As I said I don't know anything about cave diving this is just my thoughts based on what I have read, mostly on this forum, if I am way off base please feel free to let me know.

Just out of curiosity, what would a 4000ft umbilical cost??

Thanks Doc. You have made my day. I haven't laughed that hard in quite a while.
You really made my day. I'm just getting out of class and taking a dinner break before pushing in 3500 feet for an after-class dive. I can kill my deco laughing about the logistics of running hoses and the total destruction that would occur to the cave, not to mention the fact that the whole dive would be braille because if you touch the bottom you can't see.

I sincerely thank you for your very humorous outlook on cave diving, although I hope it is never practiced anywhere I enjoy diving.

Just wonder how much damage and destruction would be imposed on the caves? I would have to say A WHOLE BUNCH! I can just see it now....a couple of divers dragging 4000 feet of air inside a cave. I would have to guess waking on the bottom and pulling hose around every corner. The vis would goto zero-zero and everything would be trashed. That sounds really safe.

I have to say this idea is not even funny. If you want to add more safety to cave diving you need to look at what the wkpp does and copy it. Because that works.

Big thing to remember is this is rec. diving not commercial diving. We are there to look jave a good time and leave. Very low impact. What you are suggesting is very high impact and unacceptable.

I don't think we can compare commercial diving vs. Cave diving. They both have bad accident records in the beginning. Now with the advent of better training and equipment accidents have decreased. I'd be willing to bet trained cave diving has a better track record than trained commercial divers. We are not able to compare the risks associated with the 2 types of diving they are different. Both are trained to know the risks and asses them. WE both will accept the risk and do the dives. But there is no way I'm dragging an umbilical thru a cave, damaging the cave and the umbilical at the same time(plus a major entanglement risk). I don't think commercial divers have all or any of the answers for cave diving. What works for them will not work in a cave. Just because you have all the surface support and unlimited gas doesn't mean its risk free.
Doc you have the commercial training but it is obvious you have no cave training( you wouldn't ask a question like this) maybe you should try it, you'll learn alot about yourself and alot more about diving than you would ever believe( like bouyancy control we swim not walk). Training and experience are the key to fewer deaths in both commercial and recreational diving.
Doc your gonna have a hard time convincing me there would be fewer deaths with the umbilical. I lost my best friend to a diving accident on a common powerplant job using an umbilical and hat.
Ken

I'd be interested in hearing what the commercial guys have to offer that would be of a benefit.... The only one I can think of would be wireless comms but they won't work in a cave because of to many turns and obstructions...but wait we could run com wire instead of gold line and have phone booths every 500 ft.
Awaiting Enlightenment...Friggin

Ken,
You're absolutely correct that I'm not a trained cave diver and I wasn't even considering the environmental impact of dragging an umbilical through a cave. I was prompted to write my post after reading yet another story of a lost cave diver in today's paper.
Still, certain things do strike me as being inherently unsafe -- or, not to put too fine a point on it, can we settle on "riskier than others"). Remember that I'm not suggesting that any of these practices be banned. What I am doing is offering another legitimate perspective from outside of the sport diving sphere.
Decompression diving without a chamber on site, penetrations of any sort in scuba, deep air diving, etc. These are things which to my mind are "riskier than others." It's fair to examine them. If someone wants to make a 4000' penetration in a cave, I'm not about to try to stop them (and since I'm damned sure not following them, we have no problem ;-).
It's like scuba divers who penetrate the Andrea Doria to get one of those coveted pieces of "Italia" china. Lots of folks have died doing that. Is the China worth it? Should the practice be banned? Those are questions that should be answered by the diver concerned and I'm not in favor of government regulations of any sort as the answer.
I can say though that I used to do things in scuba that I wouldn't dream of doing today. No, surface air isn't going to produce a "risk free" situation, but it is one thing that seems to be completely ignored by the sport community, except for the little hookah rigs. You will notice other technologies which were originally commercial or military in nature being added to the rec diving community. Full face masks, communications, dry suits, etc. have become more popular in certain areas over the years. They all have their place. Commercial diving borrowed from scuba in adopting wetsuits and bailout bottles and in discarding the never-to-be-sufficiently damned heavy gear (though a few guys still use it -- it's one of those love it or hate it things).
As to fouling umbilicals and cutting hoses, asked by other posters, dive hose is incredibly tough and fouling isn't usually much of a problem. Generally easier to handle fouling problems without the constraints of limited breathing media. Penetrations with surface air are pretty routinely done at around 1000' length and much farther using special umbilicals from time to time.
Finally, sorry about your buddy. Do you know any of the particulars of the accident?

Best regards
Doc

Originally posted by Doc
No, surface air isn't going to produce a "risk free" situation, but it is one thing that seems to be completely ignored by the sport community, except for the little hookah rigs.

Click to expand...

Kind of entertaining to imagine a dozen divers backrolling off a dive boat, each with their own umbilical. I suspect you'd get the underwater equivalent of a maypole dance, with all the divers circling until their hoses are completely tangled.

And who's going to volunteer to stay on the dive boat and run the compressor, knowing that 12 people will die if it cuts out?

Zept

Zept, etal,
Yeah, 12 divers hanging like a maypole would indeed be hillarious, but that's not exactly how it works...
Hey, I'm perfectly willing to admit that I'm not a trained cave diver and I've already admitted that I didn't consider the environmental aspects of potential umbilical-caused damage. Now, who'll step up and admit that hey, there just might be some safety advantages in having unlimited breathing media and surface comms and support when you're deep into a penetration? Anyone? Hello? Will anyone say, "Hey, ya know, we might even be able to enjoy LONGER, as well as more enjoyable dives sometimes with surface air in some cases." Is EVERY friggin cave likely to suffer irrepairable damage from a mere tended umbilical (which is nearly neutrally bouyant, anyway)?
I didn't start out making fun of anyone and I'm not starting now. I think there's too much of a divide between the recreational and commercial diving communities and there's lots to learn from both. For me, it's not a pissing contest.
Often, safety is a result of redundency. In commercial air and gas systems, this is often represented by a surface supplied umbilical and a bailout rig. The bailout is essentially a scuba rig, often ranging from a little 20 cf bottle to big twin rigs, generally dependent of depth and duration. This is connected via a q.d. to a manifold on the diver's hat or mask, is valve-controlled and fed into the demand circuit.
Twenty years ago or so, bailout bottles were derided by the old timers who laughed at them as "pu**y rigs." Now they're standard, and they're standard because they WORKED. They also saved lives and yes, made the work more enjoyable. Yeah, commercial divers worry about dying and have wives and kids, too. Often, they do this stuff every day and just like recreational divers, have to consider peer pressure and the "macho" aspects of the job.
At some point in the future, some recreational divers, at some times and at some places, are almost certainly going to look at a given cave scenario and say, "Surface air (or gas)... yeah, that's the way to go on this one." Guess what. No one's going to laugh...

Best regards
Doc