jimbob(Offline)

Could someone point me in the direction of an article, thread or post dealing with team protocols. Ideally something to do with signals and who does what, when, team order that sort of thing?
I was on a dive in Plymouth the other week and I was returning the OK from the guy in front, before checking the guy behind. So anything that covers that type of thing would be great.
I expect I should know this stuff but I've just read a book on underwater photography and all previous knowledge has been displaced by arcane camera lore.
Thank you very much.
Jimbob.

se2schul(Offline)

I'm not aware of any such articles.
However, in the situation you describe, it would really depend on how good the passive communication was amongst your team.

Typically, if #1 sends an "OK" back, then #2 should send an "OK" to #3 and wait for #3's reply. After #3 answers, then #2 can respond to #1's "OK".

In a situation where you know the team very well, and #3 has been keeping exceptional passive light communication and you absolutely know that he's OK, then #2 might consider answering #1's OK immediately. For the most part though, it's best to follow the strict protocol. Keep in mind that if #1 is asking for an "OK" often, that perhaps #2's passive communication isn't as tight as it should be.

jimbob(Offline)

Thanks, just just the sort of thing I'm after.

david_1(Offline)

or if you can not see the light from number 3 its not ok...

jimbob(Offline)

I guess there's an element of trust as well.
At one point the guy behind stopped and I tried to signal the guy in front to wait and stupidly chased after him in to make sure he saw the light. Stretching things out and leaving the third guy way behind.
Maybe what I should have done is wait with the third guy and trusted the guy in front to notice. Which is what he did anyway. It was on a relatively bright reef so light signals were a bit hard to spot.
I suppose it's all common sense, but it would be good to have some tips and pointers.
Do people or rather positions have fixed roles in teams? Launching DSMBs etc..

sasdasdaf(Offline)

if the environment is bright and light signals not so useful, it might be better to be wing on wing rather than single file. you mention you were on a reef so i assume wing on wing position was possible.

usually before a dive we will assign roles, such as who is leading, who is shooting the bag, who is running deco, etc. if there are specialized roles (who is running the reel, who is tieing/untieing the boat, who is taking photos/video, etc.), it is useful to communicate this before the dive begins. have some flexibility in case plans need to change during the dive.

__________________
http://sasdasdaf.blogspot.com/

graham_hk(Offline)

There is nothing more annoying than team mates who constantly ask "ok"

If you can see their light steady they are OK so no need to signal and slow the team down. If you lose passive contact better start looking. If I am 2 and 3 signals I flash 1 as I turn around - if 1 misses the signal they will shortly miss the passive contact and turn around also.

Graham

__________________
DIN caps and plugs with free world wide postage: www.dustcap.halcyon-hk.com

neilh(Offline)

As mentioned above if it's bright and the lights aren't showing up too well then side-by-side probably works better otherwise you find yourself either turning round or rotating to look underneath yourself to keep checking that you have someone behind you. Side-by-side you can just glance left or right.

There aren't really fixed roles in the team - you need to be able to adapt to the dive and shuffle the jobs round as necessary. For instance if the person who was going to shoot the bag finds they've lost their SMB you can either get one of the team to hand theirs over or just switch roles around.

One thing we found worked reasonably well on our tech1 course for instance was the first person who switched to their deco gas shot the bag and the last ran the deco. The first person could then start building the bag and getting ready to send it up while the other two switched gas and the last person could start the timer once they'd switched. Needless to say it was typically a completely different team order to the one we started with once we arrived at the gas switch

Clare Gledhill(Offline)

You make some good points about swapping tasks around Neil - but I'm a little confused by your last paragraph. Someone should be running the deco before you get to the gas switch - so changing roles there is not great. In addition, the team should not really all be switching at the same time and whoever 'finishes first' should be watching the others not buildng a bag. The time that things are most likely to go wrong on a Tech 1 ascent are at the gas switch so taking yoru eye off the ball is not helpful.

Bag off from 24 so that your team has a bag when switching or wait untiul everone has switched and are stable before shooting one. That's if the skipper is content with bags being sent up mid water - soem are, some aren't and some wrecks don't permit us the luxury.

If you had a bag up when you reach a switch (which you always will have at higher levels) then the person managing the bag can watch the other two swicth then the first to finish that can take it over.

__________________

Interested in DIR dive training? Always happy to chat/answer questions so get in touch via PM or visit www.dirdiver.co.uk

neilh(Offline)

Ok, so I missed a few details - yes someone was running the ascent up to the switch, but we found it helpful for the last person to switch to run from 21M up.

The person building the bag wasn't taking their eye off the ball particularly, just getting the spool and bag out of their pocket whilst watching the other two.

Both reasonable options I guess. Sending them up deeper than 21M wasn't really an option on the course and typically the bag was only sent once everyone was stable.

True enough - I was just using it as an example of how the roles can and will switch around the team during the dive