Yukon tangent thread

[Oside Jimc]

A nicely split hair.

Not attemting to split hairs, but your original post referred to using the time spent recovering the anchor to do post dive checks, on a mooring you can get underway in minutes, far less time than needed for proper checks.

So people should be diving dry I presume. I will preface this with my feelings about water less than 60 degrees for an hour dive IMO should be done with a drysuit and proper undergarments.

While I prefer to dive dry, I've been on boats to the Yukon where I was the only dry diver. Brrrrrrrr, I get chilled just thinking about a wetsuit, temps this summer have been in the 50 degre range.

 

[dirtdiver1]

The water temp was 57 on the bottom. The speculation was that the diver had some problem and being alone could not handle it himself.

 

[dirtdiver1]

A problem like loss of air, heart attack, who knows...

He seemed like a good guy.

RIP

 

[Scot M]

What did the Humboldt crew say about yesterday?

They didnt say anything and I didn't ask. It didn't seem appropriate or sensitive. They looked like they felt about like I would feel in their place.

 

[Gunrock]

To fill in the picture of the Yukon as a dive, here's a video:

YouTube - Scooter dive the Yukon ship wreck

Looks like the divers in the video caught it on a fairly good day, viz-wise.

Few would say that the Yukon is a difficult or dangerous dive, whether or not penetration is involved. The ship was of course prepared for divers before sinking, to include making some large cut-outs which make entering easy.
Personally I've always thought this wreck doesn't get quite the respect it deserves. It does lie on its side which makes navigating a bit confusing, especially in poor viz, even if you don't penetrate. Most people make the dive in a wetsuit with an Al 80 provided by the boat. Having done the dive this way myself when I started out diving, this isn't the ideal way to enjoy it. Considering the depth and water temps in the low 50s (even in summer) it can be a challenging dive for people who don't dive this area often. Especially if you throw in some swell and a plankton layer that makes it dark at depth. On one occasion I saw a diver from Florida jump in, descend a few feet, then come right back saying it was too cold and murky and that she wasn't doing the dive.
The Humboldt is my favorite local boat and has been from the first time I dove from it.
I really hope the SPECULATION about the boat leaving the diver turns out not to be true. But even if it were, I think it would be immaterial to the outcome. The Yukon is a popular destination on the weekends, it's visited by commercial and private boats all day long. If someone ever did get left behind, they could just hang out near the mooring buoys and wait for a boat to show. This diver was probably beyond help before the last of the other divers stepped onto the swim ladder.

 

[lamont]

In 41% of those cases, the initial trigger that resulted in a fatality was a diver running out of air.

This should be a rather sobering stat. Run out of air, with or witout a buddy (the study included both but didn't differentiate), and there's roughly a 50/50 chance you will die.

I'm as big of a fan as anyone of gas management (click the link in my signature).

But, that study shows that if you wind up dead there's about a 50-50 chance you died due to running out of gas.

You'd need to know the number of cases of divers running OOG and not dying to arrive at the probability of death after running OOG, which DAN can't possibly know because that's just a bad dive with some major pucker factor, and doesn't get reported.

 

[Ken Kurtis]

You'd need to know the number of cases of divers running OOG and not dying to arrive at the probability of death after running OOG, which DAN can't possibly know because that's just a bad dive with some major pucker factor, and doesn't get reported.

You are absolutely right from a statistical standpoint. (And maybe I could have phrased it better.) We know the numerator, but we don't know the denominator.

The big problem here is that we, as an industry, don't track close calls. If you run out of air and make it successfully to the surface, that's not reported nor entered in any database.

However, there's another way to look at it. There ought to be some direct relationship between how often (%) something happens in the genral population vs. how often (%) it produces whatever neagtive effect we're monitoring.

My assumption, based on the number of dives that I personally monitor over the course of a year, is that out-of-air is a very rare occurence, as a % of total dives. (I have no idea what the actual number is but I certainly hear more stories of "Diver ran out of air and died" than I do of "Diver ran out of air and survived.")

And the simple point is that if something that is fairly rare (OOA) as an occuraence on a dive, can priduce a very high (41%) proportion of the accident triggers, then it says a couple of things (IMHO) about running out of air:

1. It's likely far more dangerous and likely to be life-threatening that we currently teach.

. . . and . . .

2. The "options" that we teach - alternate air, pony, octo ascent, buddy-breathing, free ascent - don't work (either because they're forgotten, not practiced, or panic prevents their use).

Bottom line is that I personall ythink OOA is far more danegrous that we, as an industry, preach/teach and it's high time we changed the culture and mindset of how we approach this because OOA incidents are easily and emminently preventable.

- Ken

 

[iztok]

I have to say how annoying threads like this are.

I am not associated with the boat that had the accident. But having first hand knowledge of the accident since I was in the area and speaking to officials during the rescue operation yesterday am extremely frustrated at the amount of BS and how much everyone feels like they have to speculate. Wait for the report, offer your RIP and stop reading into news reports. They are all different. If you know someone who witnessed the accident get the knowledge from them directly and keep the rumors off the boards.

After saying that, I can tell you that about 90% of your comments are not accurate at all and do absolutely no good for the diving community.

Captain Brandon
TDI Technical Rebreather Dive Master

So if you are so gung ho, why don't you provide the information? If you are so concerned about the inaccuracy you could provide accurate information instead of your rant.

 

[TheEngineer]

So people should be diving dry I presume. I will preface this with my feelings about water less than 60 degrees for an hour dive IMO should be done with a drysuit and proper undergarments.
As we all know hydration and thermal protection are the best prevention of decompression illness.
I will further suggest that it is IMO that a dive to 100 feet should be properly planned.

Are you crazy? I realize you're from the East Coast, but to think that every dive done under 60F should require a drysuit would imply that you think all California diving should be done in a drysuit. That is utterly ridiculous. Not only don't I dive dry, but at anything over 55F, I won't even wear a hood. After 62F or 63F, I lose the gloves. If YOU are uncomfortable at those temps, fine, wear what you want, but to imply that everyone should gear up based on your personal opinion is tremendously arrogant and uninformed.

 

[iztok]

Are you crazy? I realize you're from the East Coast, but to think that every dive done under 60F should require a drysuit would imply that you think all California diving should be done in a drysuit. That is utterly ridiculous. Not only don't I dive dry, but at anything over 55F, I won't even wear a hood. After 62F or 63F, I lose the gloves. If YOU are uncomfortable at those temps, fine, wear what you want, but to imply that everyone should gear up based on your personal opinion is tremendously arrogant and uninformed.

We get it, laws of physics are different on the West coast, esp. when it comes to you