3 replies to this topic

[Hipshot]

Just when I thought the "Open Water" scenario couldn't happen in the U.S......

Kauai Dive Incident

As a former licensed captain, I can appreciate the guy's predicament, but he should have had a divemaster to tend to the divers once they were in the water. Once underway, a captain must never leave his ship (except when abandoning ship) without another licensed captain on board to assume command.

Rick

[Diverbrian]

That's fine. But I am looking past the the "legal wording" here. And based on those, the gentleman will likely be fined and deserve it.

The fact of the matter is that ninety percent of the boats where I dive will go out in questionable conditions once in a while with experienced divers on board willing to run the risk or they simply wouldn't go out enough to pay the bills.

As to the issue on whether he should have had a DM or not. The fact of the matter is that again, most of the licensed boats where I dive do not have them. Typically, the captain is a certified DM and you can get away with running seven people out on a six-pack by listing the seventh as "the boat DM/DiveCon". Most of the divers up here don't want to pay the extra for a DM and it is a cost cutting measure. Split out the cost of six divers among seven. That is a typical deal. That isn't to say that we don't have enough DM's/DiveCons/Instructors in the general area that whenever I go out on a boat there isn't a minimum of one other dive professional on the boat (besides me) that simply is not working.

Now, my question is why the line wasn't cut and the boat taken out after the divers that started drifting off. If the divers are floating (which they should be) and have surface markers (which experienced divers on the ocean should), the boat should catch up to a drifting diver and will stand a far better job of doing so with the normal captain at the helm.

Yes, this sounds like a questionable operation that the beaucracy will finish off. Whenever the "i" 's are dotted and the "t" 's are not crossed to the extent indicated then I would be willing to bet that more other things weren't done as well. I am exceedingly skeptical of the captain's claim that he wasn't taking others out for profit. That sounds like an outright lie to me.

I am certain that the captain was in the wrong in many ways. But, a "boat dive professional" shouldn't be needed if the divers have the experience that they should have. Yet another reminder exists in this incident that if you are having these kinds of issues and are in the water, then drop your weights (if you have any to help you sink), inflate your BC, relax and have a good size surface marker to mark your position. If the boat can see you, they will come and get you.

Yet another paradox exists here. Experienced divers typically stand a far better chance of not stressing out in questionable conditions. Yet, the more experience that I get, the more willing that I am to personally call a dive based on questionable weather and simply say that I can dive another day. I have come up a few too many "bucking bronco" ladders and pulled on a few too many current lines where the pull was enough to be exhausting to find these dives enjoyable anymore. Most of the divers that I dive with are much the same way now. Going out in these conditions is simply less worth it than it used to be. The wreck will be there tomorrow.

[jholley309]

Yet another paradox exists here. Experienced divers typically stand a far better chance of not stressing out in questionable conditions. Yet, the more experience that I get, the more willing that I am to personally call a dive based on questionable weather and simply say that I can dive another day.

Ah, wise enough get away with it, old enough to know better!

I'm with Brian on this one. The easier way to resolve all of this, provided the captain really did know what he was doing, would have been to include emergency signalling procedures in the pre-dive briefing, especially since conditions were less than ideal; the drifting divers could then have inflated their bouys and blown their whistles until the boat could come and round them up. I can guarantee you a boat will be able to overcome the current and go get the divers, even if you have to throw them a line and haul them aboard yourself once they're alongside.

If I were in the same situation as the captain in question, nobody would board the boat without minimum required safety gear, to include at least 1 each visual and auditory surface signalling devices (safety sausage and whistle, in case that went over your head). Of course, the divers here could have used a crank or two on the "common sense" wheel before they got in the water, but I'll not open that particular can of worms here. To apply accident investigation terminology from the aviation world, there were a number of contributing factors here, setting up a chain of failures that could potentially have lead to far more serious consequences. This "captain" should consider himself lucky to just be facing fines, rather than criminal charges. If one of the divers had succumbed, I'd be looking for at least Manslaughter II and a wrongful death lawsuit to boot. I'd say it would be no loss if he were to never be able to run any sort of charter operation again. I sure as heck wouldn't sail with him.

Cheers!

Jim

[Hipshot]

First and foremost, had the captain used a divemaster, at the first sign of trouble, the captain could have motored the boat to pick up the divers before the situation got out of hand. Jim and Brian are correct that that wasn't the only mistake made here, but the absence of a divemaster was the most elemental.

Rick