divers rescued at Portland

[onthetrain]

Sorry if this has been posted elsewhere. Heard this on the local news tonight, & this from MCA web site


TWO MALE DIVERS RESCUED AFTER PORTLAND COASTGUARD ALERTED

Portland Coastguard were alerted this morning at 12.40 to two male missing divers, one aged 33 the other 43, from West Wickham in Kent, who had failed to surface to their dive boat about 9.5 miles offshore from St Albans Head at a wreck site. One was described as wearing a blue hood with yellow tanks whilst the other had a black hood and silver and white tanks. Their proposed dive had been 42 metres in depth with bottom time limited to 34 minutes.

The Coastguard were informed that each had a surface marker buoy.

The Coastguard helicopter `Victor Alpha’ was scrambled and the RNLI all weather lifeboats from Weymouth and Swanage were requested to launch and the weather conditions at the time were north westerly winds of force 4 with a 1 – 2 metre swell. Visibility was good at 18 nautical miles.

Various merchant vessels in the area were requested to keep a watch out for the missing divers and a further dive boat joined the search.

After an intensive search, at just after 1.00 p.m. this afternoon, both divers were spotted in the water some 2.5 nautical miles due west from where they had gone in, and the Coastguard helicopter managed to winch them on board, and confirmed that neither required recompression treatment.

When both were landed back at the shore they explained that they had surfaced with their marker buoys and horn to alert their dive boat, but both had surfaced well down tide from the dive boat – which they could see – steaming up tide.

[Kev Emery]

Safe and Sound good to hear, bet they wanted a wee wee though did i hear mention of the RNLI..

[Bob Cooper]

Sounds a little familiar. Anybody know which dive-boat they were on?

Bob

[And]

Goose

[Bob Cooper]

Originally Posted by And

Goose

Hmmm, and the skipper.......??

Bob

[Lou]

Sounds worrying. One would have expected the boat to be searching down tide when they were overdue anyway. I have to confess that the boat not seeing me is always a worry of mine. I hate those few minutes when you surface when you are not sure if the skipper has spotted you and is busy doping something else, or just plain hasn't seen you.

[warmwaterdiver]

Originally Posted by Bob Cooper

Hmmm, and the skipper.......??

Bob

Andy

[Andy Lawrence]

Hi everyone As the Skipper of Goose and senior skipper at Breakwater diving centre I thought I better reply to the suppositions speculation and the armchair critics about the lost divers from Goose, here are the facts.
While on a private charter for a film company filming a promotional video for the BBC an incident occurred which resulted me informing the Portland Coastguard of two overdue/missing divers.
Conditions at the time where wind NW 23 Knots with 2-3 metre waves.
Two of the divers did not go in as one was being violently sick and it was decided there would be too much of a risk of dehydration and the possibility of DCS.
All the divers were told to come up on delayed DSMBs.
So the team of 4 divers entered the water at the time the wind was around 18 knots NW.
After approximately 20 minutes I expressed concern to the film director and the two not diving that I had not seen any DSMBs.
After a close pass next to the shot it was noticed that their where bubbles on the line.
From this I deduced that the team had decided to come up the shot instead of DSMBs
So I concentrated on the shot.
After some time two divers appeared on the shot and where picked up. When questioned where the other pair where their answer was they had last seen them on the wreck just before they started the accent. When asked why they had come up the shot they replied the current was still slack and they thought it would be better

(At this point I would like to explain the reason I wanted everyone up on DSMBs was that we where on spring tides and once the tide turned if every one was on DSMBs it would keep them all drifting together in an approximate area and not some on the shot hanging like flags in a gale and the others half a mile away thus easier to monitor.)

Getting back to what happed.
After several passes over the wreck searching for bubbles, none of which could be found I decided to look half a mile down tide with all four of us scouring the sea.
With no sighting of the missing divers I decided to return to the shot (steaming away)
For one final look in case they where still on the shot.
After reaching the shot the tide had really picked up and was running at about 11/2 to 2 knots. At this point I decided to look farther downstream and to put out a mayday.
The wind then picked up to 23 knots.
The divers where eventually found 2.8 miles west of the shot by the chopper fit and well.
They had indeed put up a DSMB, which puzzled not just me but the rest of the divers.

After being repatriated with my two missing divers back on Portland they decided they still wanted to go back and do the before tide later that evening to finish their filming sequence.
It was on this second dive I twigged what might have happened.
When the first DSMB came up on this dive I decided to track the other pairs bubbles.
The bubbles continued for approximately 250 metres before the DSMB hit the surface.
They had come off the wreck and launched the DSMB at their first gas switch by which time they would have been outside my area of concentration.
They where not to blame it was merely an omission in my briefing to launch their DSMBs from the wreck. That detail was critically important giving the conditions.
They where a great bunch of guys and would have no hesitation in taking them out anytime.

I am disappointed about the innuendo in Bob Cooper posting.
It would appear to put a slur on dive boats and skippers in the area.
Those of you that know me will know that I take a pride in my job as a dive boat skipper as I know all dive boat skippers do.
It is a difficult job sometimes and made worse by the fact that some divers take it upon themselves to be Judge. Jury, and executioner on internet forums if a skipper makes a mistake.

Remember it is the easiest thing in the world to criticise.

[Mark Powell]

Hi Andy, Welcome to YD and thanks for taking the time to explain what happened.

For anyone that hasnt dived with Andy, I spend a lot of time at Portland and Weymouth, running courses and for my own diving, and in fact was out on Goose and Maverick Tues-Thur of last week.

My experience is that Andy and the rest of his skippers are very professional and always friendly and helpful. I have never had a problem and Andy, Graham and Jay have always been happy to accomodate anything we have requested from the courses.

When you combine several unpredictable aspects like the sea, weather and divers it is inevitable that there will be unexpected occurances. This is to be expected but it's how you deal with them that's important.

So Andy thanks again for explaining what happened.

[warmwaterdiver]

Also having dived from Topgun and Goose with Andy over the past couple of years, I would like to add my thanks. As far as I'm concerned Andy gives the best pre-dive briefing I've had and how many dive operations do you know that take colours of cylinders & hood as notes on marshall sheets. As we all know, the sea is a dangerous place, so long as we all live and learn.......