Diving team
Some specific appointments within a professional dive team have defined competences and registration may be required.
The minimum composition of the team is usually specified by some combination of national, federal or state regulations, standing orders, codes of practice, and operations manual.
[5][1][2][6] Details of competence, requirements, qualifications, registration and formal appointment differ depending on jurisdiction and relevant codes of practice.
The bellman acts as the working diver's umbilical attendant from a wet or closed bell.
[1][2][3] In some circumstances, when untethered scuba is used, there may not be a requirement for a tender, and appropriate assistance may be provided by one of the other team members.
[7] In other cases, where the working diver is required to enter a confined space underwater, an additional underwater tender may be needed to handle the diver's umbilical at the entrance or other place where the risk of snagging is high.
[8] Depending on jurisdiction, a DMP may be required on telephonic standby for all commercial diving operations.
[1][2][3] A competent person responsible for operating the bell or stage lifting winch and launch and recovery system (LARS) is needed when such equipment is used.
[1][9] The chamber operator is competent to prepare the chamber for an operation, blow it down to depth, communicate with the occupants and the supervisor, operate the main and medical locks, provide decompression gases on the built-in breathing system, monitor and maintain the chamber atmosphere composition and pressure within the prescribed limits, manage contingencies, decompress to follow a specified surface decompression or recompression treatment schedule, and perform basic maintenance procedures, including cleaning and inspecting the components for correct function.
This person controls the gas supply to the diver and may also handle communications as a direct assistant to the supervisor.
[10] A Diver Medic recognised by IMCA must be capable of administering first aid and emergency treatment, and carrying out the directions of a doctor pending the arrival of more skilled medical aid, and therefore must be able to effectively communicate with a doctor who is not on site, and be familiar with diving procedures and compression chamber operation.
A systems technician would typically be required for a team operating a saturation system, or a surface supplied diving operation with a significant amount of support equipment, or relatively complex support equipment, or where a large number of dives are planned, and on-site maintenance and repair work is likely to be needed.
Functions such as feeding and sewage disposal and locking stores and equipment into and out of the chambers are also controlled from outside by life support personnel.
ROV operation requires a different set of skills and knowledge to diving.
These responsibilities often relate to occupational safety and health and specify a duty of care for the team members.
Technical divers may form teams where this is appropriate to support each other for complex or hazardous dives.
This can include surface co-coordinators, equipment handlers, gas blenders, support and standby divers, and any other function that may seem useful to them.
The team members are not usually contractually bound and have no duty of care beyond what they may have voluntarily assumed and that of ordinary citizens.
The divers remain responsible for their own assumption of risk and are not under the direction of anyone other than themselves and the dive plan by group consensus.
[15] In complex dive operations such as deep cave penetrations, technical divers will often use team redundancy to limit the amount of equipment carried.
The concept is that equipment that is important to safety, but has a very low risk of failure does not have to be backed up by every member.
Dive computers are team redundant when two divers each have one if they both dive the same profile on the same gases, one spare mask is considered sufficient, as they very seldom break or get lost, fin straps, cutting tools and the like may be also be considered sufficiently backed up if one spare is carried by the team.
[15] The buddy system is recommended by freediver training agencies and schools for risk management by freedivers as they are at risk of hypoxic blackout for various reasons, and a competent buddy following recommended procedures may be able to intervene successfully.
[17] Appropriate training is recommended as the most effective way to develop the necessary competence, which includes both knowledge and practical experience, and understanding of personal limitations.
[16] Following the deaths of two freedivers in competitions, AIDA has a system set up for monitoring and if necessary, recovering competitors who lose consciousness underwater.
