Light "Commercial" Diving
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fstbttms
Contributor
Since the subject has come up, I've been going over the numbers in my head today and I suspect that 20,000 hull cleanings is actually a conservative guesstimate. Although FastBottoms is running at about 2300-2400 service events/year right now, I personally don't have time to do more than about 1800 boats per year. At that rate I would have hit 20K in a little over 11 years, but I've been doing this for over 15 years. So I suspect my actual number is in excess of 20K.
ScubaSteve
Wow.....what a DB
I suppose that is a good example of why people question what constitutes a dive. I might have to change my own outlook on what constitutes a dive for me.
Suredo!!!
is that you in the profile pic of your profile? doing the microtunneling job?
Just thought I'd ask. I know a lil about the picture and the job.
By the way, the commercial diving helmuts are just expensive buckets, ya know. Turn upside down and you are drawing in water like New Orleans.....unless it is locked into a drysuit, of course.
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That has not been true since commercial divers gave up the old Mk-V style helmets many, many years ago.
As far as dives are concerned, recreational divers might turn their noses up at a dive to 6 feet for a half hour, but in the working world if you get in the water, complete your task, and get out ... that's a dive.
Gorski = expensive bucket (but one of the best in terms of maintenance) with the neoprene neck dam
Desco pot = expensive bucket with the neoprene neck dam...but great for welding without electrolisis removing the metal from the helmet
Superlites = nice, but still expensive buskets with the neoprene neck dam
Millers...again expensive buckets
Band masks....nice and lightweght, but will still let water in if turned upside down
I dove a full Mark V helmut and dry suit....complete with the 180 pounds (helmet, weights, and the two 35 pound each boots).
Were you saying that the Mark V's were the only helmuts that would lock down on a drysuit?
Navy demolition divers still are required to use that get-up. Don;t know why. Figure when you plant explosives, you want to be the most agile and be in the quickest maneuverable outfit as possible.
Desco pot = expensive bucket with the neoprene neck dam...but great for welding without electrolisis removing the metal from the helmet
Superlites = nice, but still expensive buskets with the neoprene neck dam
Millers...again expensive buckets
Band masks....nice and lightweght, but will still let water in if turned upside down
I dove a full Mark V helmut and dry suit....complete with the 180 pounds (helmet, weights, and the two 35 pound each boots).
Were you saying that the Mark V's were the only helmuts that would lock down on a drysuit?
Navy demolition divers still are required to use that get-up. Don;t know why. Figure when you plant explosives, you want to be the most agile and be in the quickest maneuverable outfit as possible.
EGad
Contributor
I'm (for once) glad that my student loan got denied to go to commercial dive school. I have plenty of buckets I can invert here. If you're in a full vulcanized drysuit for work in contaminated water you have to stay upright, because no one has invented neck dams yet. I don't think that the pressurized air will counteract the pressurised water. That would just be absurd. I'm pretty sure you can't do anything but remain perfectly vertical in a Kirby-Morgan helmet or, for that matter, any surface supplied rig. All the commercial divers have imperfect orange home depot buckets with acrylic windows on their heads. No one has done reserch on surface supplied diving since about 1920. It's a good thing you're here. All my friends doing u/w welding on saturation dives may have died looking down at the weld and getting their buckets flooded.
Facetiousness aside, I'd trust a modern full helmet down to 1k fsw. It's what they're designed for. It's a system. Anyone in a commercial helmet is probably wearing a neck dam. If that floods then they haven't been getting breathable air. The water isn't the problem, then, it's the lack of air. To say that they are just buckets is minimizing the engineering that goes into the system to keep a person alive.
Eric
Facetiousness aside, I'd trust a modern full helmet down to 1k fsw. It's what they're designed for. It's a system. Anyone in a commercial helmet is probably wearing a neck dam. If that floods then they haven't been getting breathable air. The water isn't the problem, then, it's the lack of air. To say that they are just buckets is minimizing the engineering that goes into the system to keep a person alive.
Eric
okayy...........
yes, agree
yes, agree
yes, agree
yes, agree
were u just chiming in, or were u picking at something specific here?
if it was me, I appologize for picking up the blue collar lingo of "expensive bucket" or the "toilet seat".
yes, agree
yes, agree
yes, agree
yes, agree
were u just chiming in, or were u picking at something specific here?
if it was me, I appologize for picking up the blue collar lingo of "expensive bucket" or the "toilet seat".
EGad
Contributor
Not sure if you were referring to me. I'm in a bad mood tonight. Sorry. But I still object to saying that commercial diving helmets are just buckets on a head. I don't think that they should cost as much as they do, but it's a small market and they do all the research. Frankly, I have more time with my face in a toilet seat than a dive helmet. But then again I used to work for the president of one of the marine surveyor associations while I worked in a boatyard. We pulled hulls for a survey about 95% of the time, so I can't speak to hull cleaning or inspection. But the bay I live by is pretty disgusting. PCBs, fecal coliform, heavy metals. I wouldn't dive in the harbors. But if you're in a place where you feel that it's ok, then more power to ya, as the youth say. I just know I can't eat anything that comes from where I like to fish and clam.
But saying that advanced commercial diving is someone with a bucket on their head seems to be understating the fact that they have a very difficult job. I'd challenge any diver to do a saturation dive to 1300fsw and stick weld a pipe down there. They have an incredibly difficult job. It's hard to work in those conditions, and I can hardly stick weld a joint on sea level these days. But I'm sure we can agree that there are different levels of commercial dive gear and regardless of the depth and gear the job ain't easy.
That being said, you can probably clean a hull on a <40' vessel in a bucket. It's not terribly hard, it's just nasty work. I used to refinish hulls in the northeast and I wouldn't want that crap in my lungs if it was airborne or waterborne.
If I haven't rambled enough, I'll now sing the entire lyrics to Freebird. Sorry, there's a lot of heavy metals in the paint up here and I loves me some wall candy....
Eric
EGad
Contributor
I have to agree with the expensive bucket comment. I keep turning off the tanks of the commercial divers I see but they keep going on.
That's in terribly poor taste, especially in light of the thread I spend lot of my time in, but I hop you all can forgive me. I know my commercial diver friends would. After all, I turn their bailout gas back on.
It's winter, I think we can all have some topside fun.
Send any angry posts via PM, we don't need the servers wasting bandwidth on that. Also, I'm gonna do commercial diving someday. Even if it's just feed and net checks for aquaculture studies. (I'm looking at Kevin, who I grew up with.)
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