Daniel,
I am not trying to refute anyone's cherished "truths". I'm trying to understand the rationale behind your statement bolded above.
At issue is whether there is indeed "any such thing as a team situation" when penetrating a wreck. Assume for the moment that I'm open-minded.
The four authors in the URL you supplied as a citation all presented arguments, more or less, in a debate that I'll refer to as "Sport Diver Safety: Solo versus Buddy Diving". The contention on one side is that sport diving with a buddy is safer because a diver is distress may rely on a buddy to respond to issues. The other side contends that to depend on a buddy who may - for any of a number of reasons - not be able to respond is a fallacious reliance that may prove fatal: therefore, the sport diver is safer diving alone.
Like the hoary debate regarding whether .45 ACP or 9mm is a better round, this one isn't going to be settled to everyone's satisfaction in our lifetime. And for most sport diving it likely doesn't matter.
But to come onto a public board and assert that wreck divers are fundamentally safer by penetrating inside wrecks alone is not only counterintuitive, but also may lead new divers to perform unsafe acts.
First, the four authors you cited refer to general sport diving, and argue that open water divers are safer without buddies than they would be depending on them.
But "buddies" do not a make a team. At the risk of debating semantics, there is a basic difference between a team of two to four divers who train together and plan and execute wreck dives together, and a pair of "dive buddies". Perhaps the difference is based primarily on mental focus or intensity rather than skills alone, however, the fact remains that there are "dive buddies" that I would dive with on a casual open water sport dive that I would not penetrate a wreck with. I suspect that most divers who penetrate wrecks regularly would agree with that statement. Not every "buddy" is a potential team mate. There is a significant difference between a "team" and a "buddy".
Second, none of the four authors in question said anything at all regarding wreck diving, planning penetration of wrecks, or offered any specific arguments regarding why "in a wreck, there is no such thing as a 'team situation'".
Wrecks are potentially hazardous environments for numerous reasons, aside from the fact that they are overhead environments. Entrapment or entanglement is far more likely in an older deteriorating wreck than in casual sport diving. While I'm ready to listen to arguments demonstrating why penetrating inside wrecks solo is inherently safer than doing so as a team, none of the above authors had anything to say at all about penetrating wrecks either solo OR as a team.
We've already established that wrecks are a unique environment. Separate not only from caves, but also from standard open water diving. So an argument regarding whether 'solo or buddy diving is safer for open water diving' may be interesting, but is irrelevant to the basic question at hand, which is your statement that: "in a wreck, there is no such a thing as a "team situation"...
None of the authors you cited said anything about "in a wreck". Unless we want to begin discussing the differences between a "team" of divers and a pair of "dive buddies", your statement remains unsupported by anything that I can find in your citations.
Please feel free to point out where I'm misunderstanding your argument, or where I've missed something. But until then, for any new divers who may be reading this thread, be advised that wreck penetration is an extremely hazardous activity that requires special equipment and training. Until proven otherwise, it is safer to penetrate wrecks with one or two other divers who have the same level of training and equipment that you do, and with whom you have practiced and prepared to penetrate and safely exit wrecks (in zero visibility).
Solo wreck penetration, exactly like solo cave penetration, is an activity best left to those with substantial experience, and who are prepared to accept the consequences of their actions in an environment where any unforeseen event at all may result in their death.
FWIW. YMMV.
Doc
