Thanks David,
Yes I agree with the theme of what you have said there.
He is not going to be rescue qualified and all BSAC divers that are down at +20 meters will have had rescue training before increasing depth experience (or should have!).
If you follow the BSAC Crossover then you are following the guidelines, so you should be legally safe ish....
The question is "is it safe" is a good one, with no rescue training his buddy would have to rely on their own skills to get them out of trouble. At 25meters, IMVHO I would have thought a Pony was the minumum required, so the buddy would carry some redundancy.
So is a member of the club happy to dive at 30meters, effectively solo. Diving in a 3 in my opinion is the more dangerous of the options (had some interesting experiences). Propbably the best option would be dive with an instructor with plenty of redundancy and move onto Sports and rescue stuff asap..... (with mabe starting that as early as possible).
Hmmm conclusion is I am now confused
By the way, were you at the Boat Handling course at Whitby last September?
G