Yorkshire Divers

Andy the Coastie · #1 (**permalink**) 15-06-05, 10:46 AM

The PLAN was a diver to cross the channel swimming all the way on the seabed using a rebreather, non stop and must do it in less than 15 hours.

This plan was e:mail'ed to me.

I accepted to help with the crossing , but after some chatting and e:mails , it was a 2 boat job, because of the number of persons that needed to be carried.

Here goessssssssssssssss. Sunday 12 th June, 2005, I and the kids, some mates were cleaning and preparing the boat for the team to arrive at 16:00.

12:30 arrives two German guys wearing SUBMATRIX jackets, " Andy ", they say and hands are shook,,, thats as far as we spoke, as i couldn't understand a single word of German.( I was thinking , where was the German / French / English interpretor girl ). Anyway, they started to load up 3 of the lovely rebreathers and was prep'ing them up, then came some big boxes with spares and slime. I turn my back for 5 minutes chatting to another dive club as thier boat was taking on lots of water and low and behold , 3 bigger than normal 'J' ( 2 x 50 % & 1 x 100 % ) bottles have appeared on my deck, even more kit going on the boat and my draught marks slowly getting to the water line.

15:45 arrives the rest of the 17 man team, and the multi lingual girl... HORRAYYYYYYY. The diver gets half way down to the boat and remembers what he was told ( ... before getting on the boat, i want the kids to have promotional T Shirts about the crossing, complete with a photo )...Nice man.

Now, Andy the Commie is standing back listening to the main boss, working out how the 2 main sponsors are upset as only one pair can travel on my boat and the others on the support boat. Boxes still keep arriving, and ANDY is saying " No go on my boat." So careful planning is made to get the right equipment on the right boats with the right people. The word " CLUSTER F**K " was starting to be used alot. At this point.

2 high voiced bollockings had to be given at this time .. and to save on stress and to be dipolmatic, i walked away to have a fag with the other skipper.

John Perrin from Diving Products, then comes running to me. " Andy, they have put the diver in the water to test equipment..... " I saw the standby diver jump in at this point , as i shout " STOPPPPPPPPPP DO NOT GET IN THE WATER ", well F**K me , did the yotties, marina staff, charter skippers JUMP out thier skin...... This is the first time any of them have seen me lose my rag. It was like the old days,screaming at people like a drill sargent at raw recruits on thier first day ( Andy Abyss was in the firing line, but he was there to pick up stock , and not part of the project, so he was let off ). John got my kids out the way quickly, and said to Jo " christ , i've never seen Andy like this ,,, " which she replied " Oh , Thats only MILD ".

The Diver, took me to one side and gave me a big cuddle to say sorry , for his team ' fu**ing up ",,,, at this point , the team players didn't breathe without asking my premission. This is what i wanted, as the crossing was starting in the dark hours, and i was concerned only for the safety of my boat and them, as this ammount of kit and people was never mentioned in the plan given.

19:00 was the start time of the diver leaving the beach to start the dive. We left at 19:45 after running about trying to find people that had wandered off. GREAT start,missed the best part of the tide now.

Diver gets in the water, connected to the boat to a line at 5 mts, he couldn't see the stobe light on it to follow.... then he couldn't hack the small tide of .3 kt on his side. He kept coming to the surface and going back down. then the project Manager shouts " Andy slow down ", at this point i'm on ONE engine, just kicking it in and out of gear, top speed 1.7 kts.... this pulled his line though his gloves melting the rubber

{{{{{ MORE COMMING and getting GOOD }}}}

It was still a little bumpy and with a total of 10 passengers, 6 were hanging over the side feeding the fishes, God this is gonna be a long night i was thinking.

The diver is getting P'ed off at this stage, as he can't cope with the conditions and it was decided to take him 3 miles out away from the harbour and put him in better viz, YES , he can see the strobe as viz was well over 8 mts, but the swells were 1.5 mts... 20 minutes later ,,, CROSSING aborted, and a quick return to Dover, now 8 people laying ground bait for the following days fishing charter skippers.

Kettles on and the 2 skippers, diver and project managers got on the ' FIREFOX ' to work out tides for second attempt in the morning, the Diver with his Pyshio say " Andy i must sleep , and disappeared ", 3 hours of planning and it's now 03:00 and i want some sleep before the new 07:00 off time.

The film crew are on the deck chatting and we have a laugh, i go onto the Taurus to get in my bunk and there are people all sleeping all over it...... I can't sleep in my bunk ( fumming )... So noisey mode on, then i sleep on my little table. 40 minutes later i'm awake and back on the deck chatting and having a laugh. They decide at this point to get the freey to France, as they don't wanna play anymore .

I go and get some fags, and everyone is shouting " Andy, we must go " ... They learnt now the old saying " WE GO WHEN I'M GOOD and FU**ING READYYYYYYYYY ". The arguing starts again bewteen the 2 main sponsors and i'm wetting myself, one says Diver must start from the beach and the other says 3 miles out ... then i hear " I am ashamed to be German & not want the project no more ".

Diver holds on the line to the boat at 07:00 and can hang on for almost 30 minutes, speed was good. Other boat calls on the VHF " The diver must be below the surface ". HE HE HE ,,, he we go again, and still laughing, after a hour , he gets on the boat , as the other boat had the gas teccies onboard working out his CNS's .... we must now do , ONE houe in the water and a 90 minute SI ,,,, ( Fu** this is gonna be a long day ). 90 minutes of the diver sobbing on my shoulder, him getting calls from his family , his wimpers of " this has been always my dream " wears a bit thin after a while.

Start dive 2, this time we go into ANDY'S PLAN ( which they all thought was great ) ,,, Diver has a gallon oil bottle as a SMB connected with 5 mts of 100 pound fishing line... he free swims towards the engine sounds to stay on the right track...

THIS goes well for one hour and 28 minutes,,,,,, my crewman spots that he is not moving and been like it for 5 minutes, his project boss says " he is ok , having a little rest. " The gas tecks' on other boat say " pull him out ".....
The diver is in 20 mts of viz , watching 2 dolphins swimming under him in circles... he he he ( clusterfu** # god knows . ) . He is fuming when he sits on the boat and goes to have some sleep. We work out that he is drifting sideways to much and think we should can the whole crossing as he is getting noway fast enough..... MORE tears, he want to see his family..

After i do some careful thinking to please the chap, The 2 skippers come up with a cunning plan...... Lets cross the channel quick to the landing point in France

and kick him off the boat there, and let him swim up the beach to a hero's welcome......

He wakes up to see the brown cliffs of Cap Gris Nez, and is bewildered a bit,,, we wait for his family and film crew to set up on the beach.... it's shallow and swells were getting bigger by the minute.

Chatting to the project manager, i say " I can get to within 750 mts of the beach, and when he leaves , i'm not getting him back to the boat ".....

The plan was to drop him off , and then take the boats and teams to Calias to meet the coach to get the right people on the beach at the right time, this goes well and turely rat shit ,,, as i say , you want a diver to leave MY boat and swim on his own with out any safety cover. yeah right o.

The diver is in tears again as he can see his family on the beach waving , as he is finally told ...

NO .... it is unsafe ....

Wise cracks of seeing the coastal defences where the Germans tried stopping the British getting to French soil started to flow... which i think make good fun of the dissapointing try of the diver.

So, the other skipper, says on the VHF.... " Sod Calais.... Bolounge here we come " ...

Poor supports teams, having to get the people on the coach and drive 30 miles down the coast.... not pissing myself much at this stage,,, honest

The tight fisted lot , quickly removed all flags and banners, boxes of T shirts,pens, key rings and baseball caps ........ i couldn't get my light fingered hands on anything, as i wasn't quick enough....

Men from Submatrix say " we go to Dover now to get our van ? ". Man from Taurus says " Nope, i'm going ashore for my horse steak and chips, and the wind is strong and sea is rough, so i'm staying here the night . "

They decided for one of them to go to calias to get the ferry across to collect the van, after my meal and back to the boat , the wind has dropped and a call to the coastguard , the sea is flattened right off in mid channel.

Poor Submatrix man is sat on a ricketery old pontoon with 3 J bottles, 3 rebreathers, 7 boxes of parts, a 300 bar compressor, O2 booster pump and ONE box of Promotional clothing that he is guarding with his life, he didn't want to give away ONE bloody pen.

We wave and say " the wind has dropped , we must go to Dover now very quickly ".

Back in Dover, after a crossing at 15 knots in a force 6 , we find out that his brother hadn't put on a parking ticket as given by Taurus Diving , resulting in a wheel clamp.

Whats happening now is .

That a second attempt is being planned as i'm typing this by Taurus Diving and Fire Fox Charters.

We are planning it all , but still using the guys from SUBMATRIX

What did I learn from this..

1) Never trust someone elses plan.
2) Sign up for german night school.
3) Sponsors are dick heads.
4) To much equipment brought.
5) Bringing 2 defibs is a joke,
6) 3 years of planning , NEVER works, as no back up plans were made for the cluster fu**s.
7) There is loads of money to be made from these projects.
8) Horse steak is nice.
9) Make a list for all the funny comments ( next time ).