What do Commercial Divers think of Recreational Tech Divers?

I just finished Bernie Chowdhury's "Last Dive" - great book. I was reading readers' reviews of it on amazon.com and saw one posted by a commercial diver who was pretty hard on Chowdhury and his friends. He said that these divers were really amateurs who lacked the proper training and skills to be diving deep and using mised gases and that was reflected in their high mortality rate. Any commercial divers agree with this? I'm assuming commercial divers do the same type of dives but get killed much less frequently - anyone know if this is true?

I have been exposed to many different user groups within the diving community... To a fault almost every one thinks of themselves as superior to the rest...

Training agencies, PSD divers, Tec divers, military divers, DIR divers, Cave divers, etc, etc...

To some extent this is a desire to belong... Comraderie within a paticular group.

Commercial divers do dive to depths as deep and deeper pretty often, although the regulations governing commercial diving require a recompression chamber to be at the site for dives requiring decompression or to depths greater than 100 FSW.

The divers themselves do have problems occasionally (DCS) but it is able to be rapidly treated on-site... Deaths are thankfully pretty rare but the total number of commercial divers is far less than that of recreational or Tec divers...

Most of the decompression obligations are completed inside a recompression chamber on the surface where the divers can be observed the whole time...

Decompression is conducted on 100% O2...

The techniques of both the dives and the decompression obligations are much different and the training for each reflect that.

To really answer the question a commercial diver would have to also be trained as a tec diver to make a fair comparison.


Jeff Lane

The review can be seen here: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...f=sr_1_1/103-8280920-4085413?v=glance&s=books

I'd have copied it but there's the copyright thing, as well as some of the language would need to be bleeped.

It was a senseless event that need not have happened if the proper techniques & equipment were used (not to mention training/experience).

Commercial divers' biggest beef with scuba divers is when the weekend warrior goes & takes work away from a legitimate diving contractor. They can easily underbid a job because they're working out of the trunk of their car & don't follow standard safety practices with regards to training, equipment, manpower or procedure.
They get hurt/killed & up the insurance rates go. They usually don't even have any insurance anyway, so it's nothing to them.
In places like Florida where everybody's a "diver" the state worker's comp rates are in excess of 100% of the divers' wages.
gee, I wonder why?
I better go take a pill....:boom:

I have read that book, as well as another tec diving book about diving the Andrea Doria (I don't recall the name). I don't see any fault among divers that were down that day at the sub. I think that it was a complete accident, and could've happened to anyone.

Lets remember that both the father and the son had all of the proper credentials to penetrate wrecks, and had done so for over 400 dives. They were well known as excellent dive buddies, and divers in general. IMO, what happened to them underwater could have happened to anyone. There is risk involved with tec diving..............

Patrick

caliscuba once bubbled... I have read that book, as well as another tec diving book about diving the Andrea Doria (I don't recall the name). I don't see any fault among divers that were down that day at the sub. I think that it was a complete accident, and could've happened to anyone.

Lets remember that both the father and the son had all of the proper credentials to penetrate wrecks, and had done so for over 400 dives. They were well known as excellent dive buddies, and divers in general. IMO, what happened to them underwater could have happened to anyone. There is risk involved with tec diving..............

Patrick

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Actually, they made a long string of errors that started before the boat left the dock. They had the training to do that dive with considerably less risk, yet chose not to.

With people like Chris Murley makingthe news, I expect the pros to have a dim view of tech diving.

caliscuba once bubbled...
I have read that book, as well as another tec diving book about diving the Andrea Doria (I don't recall the name). I don't see any fault among divers that were down that day at the sub. I think that it was a complete accident, and could've happened to anyone.

IMO, what happened to them underwater could have happened to anyone. There is risk involved with tec diving..............

Patrick

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Agree totally with Burke. There were so many screwups the Rouses made that day to be unbelievable, starting with the fact that neither one of them wanted to make the dive in the first place. How you could read the book and come to any other conclusion is beyond me.

I have heard anything from an almost reverential awe that someone would do all the work,planning,mixing and site work without any help and carry off dives that very few commercial companies could do(like 300' deep for 20,000' penetration)to some who just scoff and belittle anything recreational as "childs play"There are 2 schools here and few different companies that range from salvage to bridge inspection.Most of the" paid divers" are pretty cool.A lot of what you get from a person depends on how you approach them. A lot of the diving done by the people in that book use methodology no longer considered optimum

I would love to see the dive plan to do a commercial dive to penetrate 20,000 feet at a depth of 300'.
Where are you going to find enough divers and support equipment to just handle the unbilical?

The thing is, tech divers are not trying to get work done on the dive and there is no real push to make the dive even if the conditions are not good for diving.

Different game, different goals, different rules.

Where are you going to find enough divers and support equipment to just handle the unbilical?

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The longest shot of umbilical we had was 5000'. Anything longer & it'd get farmed out to rebreathers.
A hose puller was posted at any corner & every 1000', its a drag hauling hose that's longer than that even if it is neutral.
Decent pay at a buck a foot.:tease:

Bob3 once bubbled...
The longest shot of umbilical we had was 5000'. Anything longer & it'd get farmed out to rebreathers.

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So, rebreathers are at the cutting edge of all future diving, whether commercial, or technical, or recreational?