Trips when divers aren’t ready/equipped for them

[Marie13]

I’ve got a slighty sticky situation with the trip planned for next summer.

It’s for the Straits of Mackinac. The wrecks are deeper, one right at recreational limits, with the possibility of some current. Bottom temps around 40-45F. I’m the trip organizer and put down the deposit. You can’t book directly with the charter op and have to go through me.

Several folks have indicated an interest in the trip, but they either will not be ready or are not willing to equip themselves properly for deeper dives. I’ll be doing deeper wrecks as well as deep dives (with very experienced buddies) on the deep side of a quarry that goes right down to 130ft before the trip. I’ll be doing it SM and others who are probables will either do SM or BM doubles. The probables either have tech aspirations or are already certified as such (several are full cave).

The questionables are good divers, but they think any dive can be done on an AL80 and refuse to carry a pony. I think it’s the influence of vacation divers even though they’ve done a bit of Great Lakes diving and a lot of cold quarry diving. We’ve tried both my AL30 and AL19 ponies with no success. A jacket BC with D rings not in the correct places doesn’t help. They also won’t do any deeper dives or other extra work before the trip (I know this because they’ve told me).

How would you address this with the questionables? I was very specific about the planned wrecks and their depths so they can’t say they were unaware of what the trip would entail.

 

[The Chairman]

Always set the "minimum" gear requirements first, if you think there's going to be a problem. That or get an instructor to join you that can teach them.

 

[tbone1004]

you have one of two groups that you are all but guaranteed to piss off.
If you don't let them come because you are afraid they are going to be a problem, then you are going to piss off your buddies.
If you bring them, and they are a problem on the boat, it is likely you will end up on the "boat's full" list, with the added possibility of someone getting hurt.

What would I do? I would just tell your buddies that this is something that you are concerned about for their safety and lay out what your requirements are. If they won't commit to meeting those requirements, open it up to those that are.

 

[Marie13]

Always set the "minimum" gear requirements first, if you think there's going to be a problem. That or get an instructor to join you that can teach them.

Didn’t think that would be a problem! I guess I expected common sense would demand larger tanks and redundancy. Nope!

One is a good friend. Said person has been offered use of my BP/W, my pony, and loaner larger tanks (HP100/120) from someone else. So getting better equipped would not cost anything extra, aside from deeper quarry dives in another location. Nope.

I’ll definitely go back to everyone who has indicated an interested with gear requirements. No one has put down a deposit yet, so money is not yet involved.

EDIT: I’ve got the entire boat reserved (6 pack).

 

[Wookie]

This is always the issue. If you make a trip an "open trip", you'll get folks who shouldn't be there, worse, they think they should be there. Or, you're going to piss off the folks who should be there because you're taking them to a site suitable for the numpties.

When I ran tech trips, I chartered to a certain "rebreather epicenter". They put 11 hypoxic trimix divers on the boat and one Normoxic. That meant that I had to make one special mix. Every fill. The only way to run a trip with 12 divers and 12 crew is to bank gas. But when one is on something different, you can't. Or, you can, but the advantage is gone.

So we dove wrecks in the 200-220 foot range. Close enough to normoxic that I could give instructions not to dive deeper than 200 feet and turn a blind eye. Our last dive of that trip was always the Wilkes Barre, in 250 feet of water. No way am I taking a normoxic diver to a 250 foot dive. So we dove the Curb in 175 instead. I can still hear the screaming.

So my lesson is, make sure everyone knows that it's your trip. Make sure everyone knows what the wrecks are, and be the nasty person who sets divers out if they act all numpty.

Your captain will love you for it.

 

[rhwestfall]

What are the Captain's rules?

 

[scubadada]

@Marie13

Are you and the other divers using doubles planning on doing deco or are these no stop dives? Using 28%, a dive to 130 feet would only have an NDL of 15 minutes or less. Is there a local standard for divers doing these dives? Do the boats in this area have equipment standards for these dives?

 

[Marie13]

@Marie13

Are you and the other divers using doubles planning on doing deco or are these no stop dives? Using 28%, a dive to 130 feet would only have an NDL of 15 minutes or less. Is there a local standard for divers doing these dives? Do the boats in this area have equipment standards for these dives?

Recreational trip with no deco. That was made very clear. I’m not trained for it yet and it will be several years before I am.

Everyone I personally know who has dived these deeper wrecks has done so with some sort of redundancy - HP100 (or larger) with AL30/40 pony, SM, or BM doubles.

Unknown on the other questions at this point since trip is a year off.

 

[Marie13]

What are the Captain's rules?

Have a message in on that.

 

[DanielRJones]

Recreational trip with no deco. That was made very clear. I’m not trained for it yet and it will be several years before I am.

Everyone I personally know who has dived these deeper wrecks has done so with some sort of redundancy - HP100 (or larger) with AL30/40 pony, SM, or BM doubles.

Unknown on the other questions at this point since trip is a year off.

Me and the wife are both qualified to 40m we both have bm doubles but also dive with single tanks.
At 20m and below i am limited by ndl not air unless I am above 28%
Yes at 40m we would dive doubles but have dived with people on single tanks with no redundancy.
Turn pressure on a 12l tank from 40m is
7mins on ascent @ 10m/min and 3min safety stop
2 diver at 25l/min
So 1050l or 90bar so add in 30bar for backup and 120bar leaving the bottom for 2 divers

Leaving me with 110 bar for the dive to 40m.
That is 1320l
5min for descent using 300l as basing on 20l/min
Leaving 1000l for the bottom which is 10mins at 20l/min.

Would I dive to 40m on a single 12l tank proberly but only the once and if i didnt have my twins with me. Would i dive with someone else using a single tank yes but only if they followed the dive plan to the letter. Aslong as the diver knows their limitations and is not forcing them on others and the trip is an open trip and no limitations placed when the trip was arranged then let them dive