New to the forum and looking for a straightforward answer

[Joshua Windham]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to this forum and I'm looking for an answer to a question I've been pondering over for a few days. I've recently been researching diving for a career, and was wondering if I decided to, later on, switch to being a ship captain, could diving be a good way of going about doing this. The reason I ask this is that I want to do diving but also have a passion for ships. Any answer will help with my search. Thanks in advance,

Josh.

 

[guruboy]

No

 

[chillyinCanada]

No

While that is indeed a straight forward answer, I'd still appreciate it if you would expand on it just a tad.

 

[Akimbo]

Generally commercial divers aren't directly involved with the vessel's operations so I would not say it would be a good way. Any time at sea adds to your skills and knowledge so it is far from useless. You also have to define "ship's captain". Are you thinking of an unlimited masters license for trans-oceanic shipping operations or something smaller like running a charter dive boat or liveaboard?

 

[diversteve]

I know someone who is a hard hat salvage diver. He also runs the gas board for other sat divers. He also has a 100 ton captains license so he can take a watch as needed. He also has video skills and HD video gear to document what they find.

IMO, there's not a lot of crossover the other way - most captains won't need commercial diver skills. If for some reason they needed one - like maintenance on the ship - they'd rent one.

for reference, everything I know about commercial diving I saw on TV.

 

[Joshua Windham]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for replying. I know that my question was a bit vague, so here is a clarification to what I was saying. My main idea for a career in commercial diving is underwater welding. The idea of wanting to be a captain came from researching different career changes if commercial diving didn't work out. The reason I asked this question, was to see if I could, in theory, obtain hours that a master license or a captains license required at sea by diving. I forgot to state this. Anyways, thanks for any future advice or answers.

Josh

 

[Benjamin Cody LaPointe]

Josh, regarding underwater welding, that's not all there is to it. I'm sure your aware. I'd be shocked if you could find a gig where all you do is weld. You'll be more of a jack of all trades, just in the water. Pile jackets, pipeline inspection, sea wall repair, hull inspection, concrete work, coffee dam installation... These are all common tasks in the industry. Being used and abused is commonplace, people asking you to do dangerous tasks still happens. It's so important to be aware that companies will not have your best interest at heart and you need to be prepared to say no and find a new job. A previous reply stated that diving will put you in close contact with ships Masters (mostly tugs in my experience) where you can ask questions, volunteer your hands, and learn from seasoned professionals. But you'll still be a diver first. And if you're working the way you should be, spare energy to lend someone else at the end of the day should be in short supply.
Hope this helps. Good luck, be safe.
Happy to answer anything else I know about.
Ben

 

[Heliumthief]

I agree with Benjamin, and would just add that Divers dive and captains....do something else, on the bridge...coffee and stuff..

In the U.K. for example, when you start out, you’ll probably be working Inshore on construction jobs, and every so often, you’ll get to take control of the zodiac, or RIB, some of the civils companies will have their own workboats that you might end up helming too, and there’s always the chance that they might put you through a ticket or two to make it legal (and insured). At some point after that, the work diverges. If you are on big construction jobs, generally you’re going to be there because they need you Diving, so you won’t get to play around with much other than the zodiac etc. and the boats will be bigger, towing barges etc. and the company will want full time skippers.

Salvage has always been somewhere that, the more skills you have, the more you work, but it isn’t easy to break into, it can be occasionally ‘a bit dodgy’ and the work is irregular..

And of course, once you start talking about DSV’s, diver and captain are very different, full time jobs...

Bottom line is, you’ve got to pick the job you want to do, and go 100% at it...