Recreational Wreck Diving vs Cave Diving. Why the Inconsistency?

[Fish-R-Man]

A lot of divers that went to Truk are not tech wreck/full cave trained. Not allow them to penetrate Fujikawa or saying SanFrancisco is far too deep(50m+)!!!!
A dive centre in Subic Bay would not let any divers, tech wreck or not, to penetrate USS New York without supervision. But there are dive guides, instructors and dive centres who are more than willing to take their clients to anywhere for.....
Nothing venture nothing gains!!
Survival of the fittest.

I spent a week in Truk in 08. We did a number of dives were we penetrated the wreck to about level three to four of Rick's list. There were only a couple of things that I wish would have been discussed earlier in the week. First, what smells and tastes like kerosene is kerosene. (leaking fuel drums) The second is don't let a bored dive guide bang rusted mine detonators on the edge of a hatch to get the rust off. More than likely some of them may still be good... These were our major hazards for the week.

I do believe that individuals that want to do deep penetration of wrecks need to be trained like cave divers. There are a large number of hazards that can cause issues. To make this a Rec Wreck course a requirement, I believe will cause more harm than good. Just like the solo dive course. IMHO it will give less than qualified divers a false confidence to enter spaces that should not be in. The divers that want to have advanced training will find that it is already available.

 

[DeepSeaExplorer]

Which cave courses provide full accelerated deco qualification without deco training?

No cave class provides deco training. But, once you have a full cave card, you can get 100% O2 fills and do deco dives.

 

[Rhone Man]

Spitballing: It is not on Andy's list of options, but what about splitting recreational wreck training into Wreck I and Wreck II?

PADI would love that.

 

[Wobbegong wannabe]

That said, we do not want to have so many expire from their own hand that some politician will consider it a career enhancement to force rules down our collective throats.

Isn't that what happened with caves? Isn't that why there are relatively more regulations about cave diving than wreck diving?
The other thing about caves is that they are on land and have landowners that can be sued.

You dive a wreck and end up part of the food chain, there's no easy person for your grieving family to sue. There's no local law enforcement person who can decide to blow up the entrance so no-one else can come to the same sticky end. The local authority can 'prohibit' access but in real time there's not much to stop you mooring a boat and diving it. That's different from caves, where you can restrict access at the surface by putting up a fence, grating entrances, installing a pack of bull terriers etc.

My guess is that the difference in training requirements is more an historical accident brought about by access control and liability, rather than a genuine assessment of required diving skills.

Too funny! It reminds me of a friend's Cave 2 class, where the instructor got "lost", had to be "found", then panicked and had to be chased, ran out of gas, and then went unconscious. I think, by the time my friends got him out of the cave, they actually wanted to drown him

Holy fr$%^ing cow. That's taking real life training to the extreme! I'm guessing they need a better behaved 'body'...

 

[LiteHedded]

Isn't that what happened with caves? Isn't that why there are relatively more regulations about cave diving than wreck diving?
The other thing about caves is that they are on land and have landowners that can be sued.

You dive a wreck and end up part of the food chain, there's no easy person for your grieving family to sue. There's no local law enforcement person who can decide to blow up the entrance so no-one else can come to the same sticky end. The local authority can 'prohibit' access but in real time there's not much to stop you mooring a boat and diving it. That's different from caves, where you can restrict access at the surface by putting up a fence, grating entrances, installing a pack of bull terriers etc.

My guess is that the difference in training requirements is more an historical accident brought about by access control and liability, rather than a genuine assessment of required diving skills.

this is why you see cave divers getting upset about untrained divers. if there were no risk of losing access people wouldn't get so bent out of shape.

 

[fjpatrum]

I am a critic of recreational wreck training. I think that wreck penetration is equally as dangerous and specialist as cave diving.

I think that 'wreck diving' without penetration is simply 'metal reef diving'. It simply doesn't need a specialist course of training.

Cave diving is governed and regulated by independant authorities, that effectively remove it from the domain of mainstream recreational agencies. This serves to ensure that appropriate and comprehensive training is given to participants, along with strict regulation of activities. In addition, many national and regional government organisations will impost regulations on cave diving activities.

Even recreational cavern diving is subject to increased regulation...with course standards requiring a fully qualified cave instructor, rather than a regular non-specialist recreational instructor.

Why is this not the same for wreck diving?

IMHO, the recreational wreck training is woefully ineffective. It is the preserve of the recreational scuba agencies and they have failed to treat it differently to any other area of diving 'interest'.

A PADI instructor can qualify to teach wreck courses solely on the basis that they had one days training or they can even self-certify providing they have 20 logged wreck dives. That basically means that any PADI instructor can teach wreck diving, irrespective of their capability. It also means that the instructors themselves have no real appreciation of what they are teaching. I don't think this attitude reflects any care or consideration for the dangers of wreck diving.

Wreck courses can be taught by instructors with no background in wreck diving. :depressed:

Wreck courses don't have to include penetration dives. :depressed:

Wreck courses don't include mandatory penetration related skills. :depressed:

Here's a brief review of the relevant PADI Wreck course standards, from an experienced wreck diver perspective:

I agree with you, but the assertion that a PADI instructor has no appreciation of what they are teaching isn't necessarily true just because they can self-certify or because they can certify with only one day of instruction. Appreciation for the gravity of wreck penetration may be increased by taking longer courses or having specifically designed courses but those definitely are not a requirement for respecting the dangers involved.

EDIT: As a newb I see wrecks in a similar manner, they scare the hell out of me. Enticing enough for me to do something stupid that I don't have the experience, training, or equipment for, but I don't think regulation is necessarily the solution. I hope I also have enough common sense not to do those stupid things when I finally get to dive some wrecks.

Better classes would be outstanding. Devondiver, why not build your own course and submit it to the various agencies as a true "wreck penetration" course. I'm sure agencies would jump on the opportunity to add a specialty if the course was well thought out and planned. As someone else mentioned, cave diving "regulations" got started because people were dying but I suspect it wasn't a community or industry-wide concensus to suddenly create those courses. The community recognized a need, to be sure, and someone created the first course. Someone else improved upon it etc etc.

So, in short, I'd really like to see some real quality courses for wreck penetration a la cave diving courses, but I don't think they should be mandatory.

 

[rjack321]

Too funny! It reminds me of a friend's Cave 2 class, where the instructor got "lost", had to be "found", then panicked and had to be chased, ran out of gas, and then went unconscious. I think, by the time my friends got him out of the cave, they actually wanted to drown him

We had a good laugh about it.

 

[Oside Jimc]

Watched a PADI wreck class last weekend on the Yukon, what a train wreck. Students with no skills (buoyancy, line handling, proper kicks, nothing), instructor not much better (watched him teach basket weaving 101, gathering up line from a spool in his hand). Dangling everything (lights, consoles, etc...), what was their "redundant air supply"??? spare air! (shiny new spare air, probably sold by the shop to "prepare" the students for the hazard of overhead diving), several students on AL80 @ 80'+ depths. And after all this the instructor took them on a penetration dive into the Yukon, it scares the **** out of me to think these yahoos now think they are qualified to penetrate a wreck. Yes the Yukon is prepared and open, but it is an overhead and fairly deep, I'm intro to cave and if I learned nothing else from the class (and I learned a LOT), overhead can kill, proper training and observing the limits of that training are essential for survival. And in my book effective training should do just that, prepare you for survival in a potentially lethal environment.

 

[gcs118]

After having recently taken the PADI Wreck course, I don't feel the course itself was inadequate, rather there should be minimum standards for students prior to enrollment.

A bit of background: I have about 75 dives and have done "wreck dives" before without penetration. For the past couple months I had been practicing with my wreck reel and gotten comfortable with my pony bottle, as well as bettering my buoyancy, frog kick, helicopter, and so on.

For the course we were lucky to do 4 dives on the same wreck. Day one: determine potential hazards and map the wreck - where would the best place be to penetrate? Day two: line skills taking turns reeling in/out and following. Dive four was also penetration dive. This is where the fit hit the shan. Naturally, I did the reel because my buddy had never used one prior to that day. We buddy up and with the instructor head straight for the selected hole. The wreck lying in the sand at about 65' allowed sufficient penetration if within the light zone (130' total). There were a number of breaks in the structure large enough to get out of should anything happen. I entered a small room and saw on the other side a large, open cargo area that we were familiar with that opened directly into open water. Since we were technically still in the light zone, I went through and once we got to the cargo hold I signaled that I was done and this would be a good stopping point. I noticed that after my buddy came through there was a serious silt cloud. To my surprise, instead of allowing anything to settle, he immediately turned to return. I debated not following him in but the instructor followed suit. I considered leaving the reel and swimming to the original opening, but went ahead and followed them in. Since I had to wind the line I was slower and in the small room left alone with zero visibility. I felt for a moment a deep fear - all the air in the world would do me no good if I couldn't leave this dark, blind maze. I considered dropping the reel and returning to the cargo hold, but luckily I didn't because I could have gotten seriously disoriented. I waited for things to settle but my instructor reappeared to make sure all was ok and I continued with the line. I was only about 10-15 feet from exiting the room and all was well. I was very upset because my buddy had serious buoyancy issues and only knew how to flutter kick going into this. Even with a very basic penetration like we did, I still felt jeopardized.

I learned a lot from this experience: only dive with qualified people. Don't dive beyond my limits - even basic things can go terribly wrong. I, too, need to work on kicks, perfecting buoyancy and line skills before attempting anything like this again. Silt comes up easily and I had never experienced zero viz nor the fear and danger that accompanies it.

All in all, it was a great class for me personally because it opened my eyes to a number of issues. I think things would have been much smoother had there been pre-reqs for students prior to class, as the class itself was conducted well.

Just my thoughts...

EDIT: I should qualify my thoughts that the course ONLY can prepare students for basic penetration, up to 130' total from surface and within light zone. Beyond this, more training is mandatory in my opinion.

 

[Tortuga68]

Day two: line skills taking turns reeling in/out and following. Dive four was also penetration dive. This is where the fit hit the shan. Naturally, I did the reel because my buddy had never used one prior to that day. ... I was very upset because my buddy had serious buoyancy issues and only knew how to flutter kick going into this

Well there's your problem. Well some of them anyway

I learned a lot from this experience: only dive with qualified people. Don't dive beyond my limits - even basic things can go terribly wrong. I, too, need to work on kicks, perfecting buoyancy and line skills before attempting anything like this again

So the people that were on the course weren't qualified for it?

All in all, it was a great class for me personally because it opened my eyes to a number of issues. I think things would have been much smoother had there been pre-reqs for students prior to class, as the class itself was conducted well

These three statemements don't seem to go together with each other let alone the above quotes

I'm not someone who posts here agency-bashing or telling people what they should or shouldn't do, but your post was pretty scary IMO