Could you have done this at 30 dives?

[SoccerJeni]

Awesome! It makes me want to go jump in the pool right now!

 

[dkktsunami]

No, I could not. But no one showed me how to do this. Also the wing and plate helps. A very good instructor had something to do with this.

 

[The Chairman]

Good stuff. Kudos to the staff that trained them.

 

[DeeperOut]

I am perplexed that no one is pointing out the "fresh meat factor". These divers appear in good physical shape. This alone is very important.

I have had military and pro athlete students that showed amazing technique, situational awareness and buoyancy control after seven dives. Do I pat myself on the back for that? Hardly. They had spent thousands of hours gaining control over their motor skills. Or talk about freedivers and water polo athletes. Amazing on their first scuba dive.
SAC of 7 with no breatholding, just truly relaxed... Yoga bastards!

This does not diminish or belittle the instructors work. But nonetheless, the often overlooked physical condition factor is very manifest in that video.

But you know what is even more important than physical condition? Motivation properly applied.
We are talking about future scientific divers, somebody educated in applied science and motivated to be great divers. I somehow think they did their studying properly, paid attention, and know the biggest secret knowledge of all time: "If there is a manual, read it. "

Compare that with fun and thrill seekers that enjoy nothing more that combining all night partying and boozing with some "fun" dives.

 

[Diver0001]

If Steve can do that, I want to see video proof!

I have a reputation locally for being an EXTREMELY quiet and stable diver (even among my GUE friends) and I'm quite sure that, before five minutes went by, I'd have moved a fin somewhere. Hands, no, but fins, absolutely.

I can confirm that Lynne looks pretty good in the water

What I like about this video is the idea of doing the final exam under water. I really like that idea.

As for whether or not I could do that at 30 dives. Probably not.

That said, any kind of rudimentary instruction on hovering in this fashion will produce similar results in most students with 30 dives. I don't see this as being particularly ahead of the curve, tbh. Don't forget, this is a course in scientific diving at a university and those courses can be up to 100 hours long... so given the amount of bottom time these divers already have, I would fully expect this level of buoyancy control and trim. It's good, don't get me wrong, but it's good because they have spent a lot of time on it.

As an aside, I'm really not a fan of the sculling with the fins shown here. Newbie divers don't need to be taught sculling in this manner for station keeping. It's a bad habit.

R..

 

[avengerki]

That is a good way to prevent cheating. All exams for all schools should be held underwater!!

 

[Doppler]

If Steve can do that, I want to see video proof!

Do what exactly?

 

[lowviz]

I started it. The consequences are on me:

The Six Skills and Other Discussions. Page 48, bottom. Hang motionless for 5 minutes. No can do! Dying to get to page 49!!!

(I'm SO dead in the next "Disaster" clinic...)

 

[Thalassamania]

That's pretty typical of what we'd expect, though our final is in full gear, open water, and somewhat more task oriented, a midwater version of the classic flange assembly problem. Out people, at that point would gave between 22 and 44 hours in the pool and 11 open water dives (exam is on dive 12).

Here's the place were we bring all the buoyancy and trim stuff together our goals are not construction evaluation or training (remember OSHA) but rather buoyancy control, planning and teamwork; on the final exam dive one of the students’ trials is, “the sewer flange.”

The parts: a 18 inch PVC sewer flange with gasket, eight 3/4” bolts, eight 3/4” nuts, sixteen flat washers to fit, eight lock washers to fit, a mesh bag, two large adjustable wrenches, two net floats, and some net twine.

The set up: Each flange half is tied to a ten foot piece of net twine with a net float at the other end. They are taken out over a flat bottom in 30 feet of water. Students are handed a net bag with the gasket, all the nuts, bolts washers and wrenches when they arrive in the area of the float. They were permitted to examine the flange in class and may bring their own tools if they’d rather.

The problem: A buddy pair of students must approach the flange underwater and assemble the flange, with the gasket in place, by placing a flat washer on a bolt, inserting the bolt through an appropriate hole in the flange, then placing a second flat washer followed by a lock washer and a nut onto the protruding end of the bolt. The bolt must be tightened more than hand tight. This process must be repeated for all eight bolts. The exercise is scored on time and points off. Time is from when they are handed the bag, point off are: 1 point if a net float is pulled beneath the surface, 5 points if any part of a diver or a diver’s equipment breaks the surface, 5 points if a diver or any part of a diver’s equipment touches the bottom. Completing the exercise is made interesting by the fact that the divers are passing tools and other items with significant weight back and forth and must maintain good buoyancy control to remain on level with the assembly, even while they are “loosing weight” as the bolts and washers become part of the assembly.

The best job ever done on this task was Steve Paulet, who is a member of the SB. Steve and his buddy brought their own tools and the kind of cocky attitude that only an undergraduate Ocean Engineer with supreme self-confidence, who’d been bragging for weeks that they were going to set a new record, can exude. They had practiced and came equipped with their own tools including a socket, a deepwell socket, a T-handle and a speedwrench. They swam out and set to work, the choice of tools was good, as one inserted a bolt through a flat washer and pushed it through one half of the flange, the gasket and the other half, and held the head of the bolt in a socket and T-handle, the other diver placed a flat washer, lock washer and nut on and tightened it down with a deepwell socket on a speedwrench. They were well rigged, the T-handle and speedwrench had wrist straps so that if they dropped them they’d not loose them and they were progressing faster than I’d ever seen a pair go. On about the fourth bolt Steve finished tightening it and pulled back on the speedwrench to get the clear the bolt end. He misjudged the angle and the socket came off the wrench and fell to the bottom. “Got him now!,” I thought. But the SOB reached into his BC pocket whipped out another deepwell socket, clicked it onto the speedwrench and was off and running with perhaps a loss of three or four seconds. Guess who was helping us teach the next year?

 

[TSandM]

Hold utterly still in the same position for five minutes, Steve. I know, if I'm absolutely perfectly balanced, I can do it for a minute or more, but I'm pretty sure that before five minutes was up, I'd have to flick a fin somewhere.