Findings and Recommendations: Safety Issues

Multi-Institutional Cruises

Findings

• The process of preparing for a diving cruise involves a discrete number of invariable steps, interlaced with project specific requirements. The process includes: selection of the lead institution; documentation that all research diver certification requirements have been met; research diver review and approval process; and an initial letter from the lead institution's campus diving administration to the ship operator documenting the above.
• The process is brought to the ship at the beginning of the cruise in a full-scale meeting between the On-Board Diving Supervisor, the vessel's Master, and the Chief Scientist, together with appropriate others such as the Marine Superintendent (if available).

Recommendations

• A formal walk-through of the ship's equipment that the research divers will need (e.g., small boats, crane) with the Master, Chief Engineer, Diving Safety Officer, On-Board Diving Supervisor, Marine Superintendent and the Principal Investigator prior to a cruise is highly desirable.
• Through a procedure not dissimilar to that used for ALVIN proposals, the grant proposal, as written, should specify to the greatest extent possible details of the planned diving including the divers, the institutions, the ship (by class and preferably by name), the time, the location, the specialized and routine equipment required, the costs to be uniquely attributed to the diving operation, and an outline of an emergency plan. This could be assisted by requiring the attachment of a completed Pre-Cruise Dive Plan Form.
• Prior to the submission of the grant proposal, the Principal Investigator should work out with the desired ship operator and the respective campus diving administrations the details of the planned diving as outlined above.
• The description of the process described above and the Pre-cruise Dive Plan Form should be incorporated into appropriate NSF, UNOLS and RVOC documents.
• Uniformity across the fleet in the requirements placed on diving cruises is highly desirable.

Small Boats and Small Boat Operators

Findings

• Most vessel operators have small boat operation rules and regulations. However, when viewed from a fleet-wide perspective, these are not generally available, complete, or consistent with each other especially as they relate to at-sea diving support.
• A common standard should include operator requirements (training, certification, proficiencies, etc.), operational procedures (launch and recovery, diver assistance, support and communication, special diving conditions, etc.), dive planning involvement, a detailed checklist, and emergency procedures.
• The primary boat operator should normally be a member of the ship's crew. Science party operators must demonstrate, to the vessel Master's satisfaction, acceptable skills and knowledge. Having a boat operator with diving knowledge is useful to both the ship and the science party and should be encouraged.

Recommendations

• UNOLS/RVOC should develop a common set of guidelines for small boats and their operators, not unlike (in form) the standards AAUS developed for research diving. These guidelines should be incorporated, as appropriate, into the UNOLS Shipboard Safety Standards, the RVOC Safety Training Manual and other UNOLS/RVOC documents. These new guidelines should include coverage of the use of small boats for diving operations. Small boat topics that relate to diving should be incorporated into the documents mentioned above in both the small boat and diving sections.
• Small boats from which diving operations are conducted should, as a high priority consideration, always be equipped with a way of rapidly recalling the divers to the surface in an efficient manner.

Diver Evaluation and Training Standards

Findings

• Shipboard diving, when compared to near-shore diving conducted from small boats, requires additional diving skills and knowledge on the part of the scientific party as well as additional skills and knowledge on the part of the ships' crew. The assumption that all members of such expeditions have been adequately trained and indoctrinated in the tasks to be performed may not always be valid. It is imperative that all personnel involved in the diving operation have a clear understanding of the tasks to be performed, how they are to be accomplished and who the responsible individual is.
• The responsibility for the establishment of minimum standards for qualifying and training scientific divers, as well as running research diving safety programs, rests with AAUS. The implementation of those standards rests with the campus diving administrations. AAUS standards cover basic diver training but do not directly address day-to-day shipboard scientific diving operations.
• It is not uncommon for diving cruises to include diving personnel from institutions other than the vessel operator. It is sometimes difficult for foreign divers and divers from institutions which lack an AAUS model research diving safety program to demonstrate their qualification for research diving cruises.

Recommendations

• When a cruise is leaving from a port other than the home port, and there are research divers meeting the ship who are not yet qualified, inclusion of the Diving Safety Officer (or an authorized representative) in the scientific party as the On Board Diving Supervisor is the preferable mode of operation. This approach permits the On-Board Diving Supervisor to conduct the required in-water checkouts of the divers and to qualify them on the spot. When this approach is used, research divers need to consider that they will not be permitted to dive if they do not meet the qualification criteria.
• The development of common policy approaches, evaluation criteria, and protocol for the testing of the proficiency of shipboard scientific divers and support personnel is needed. Consensus standards covering these items should be developed.
• All UNOLS members whose scientists carry out diving research or who operate a UNOLS research vessel should be Organizational Members of the AAUS so that they can fully participate in the development and evolution of research diving safety standards.

Emergency Planning

Findings

• Masters and mates are prepared to respond to life-threatening events at sea on an ad hoc basis.
• Diving cruises require specific plans to deal with medical advisory communication, evacuation, and location of operational hyperbaric chambers that have medical support.
• Available chamber location information receives little distribution even though it is useful in operational area planning.

Recommendations

• The On-Board Diving Supervisor should be given primary responsibility for the assembly of the information and protocols that go into the Pre-cruise Dive Plan.
• If an accident occurs, the Master of the main vessel has the responsibility for establishing communication with pre-defined medical advisory personnel. Both the scientific party and the ship's crew should understand how to communicate with the agencies involved in medical emergency and rescue.
• Research divers (working with the vessel EMT when present) should be prepared to deal with oxygen administration and emergency management.
• Emergency drills should be held on vessels conducting diving operations.
• With the appropriate approval of UNOLS, an emergency planning file should be established at the UNOLS office. The file would contain past emergency plans including information on medical and evacuation support, recompression facilities, response chart documenting 'response-radius' of the evacuation facilities and other emergency contacts. An on-line computer data base that keeps track of the plans in the file should be an integral part of this project.
• As part of a diving cruise emergency plan, the On-Board Diving Supervisor must include details concerning: contacting medical advisory groups; evacuation procedures; diving operations; and emergency chain of command, including 'first-responder aid' communication. A 'response-radius' chart should also be prepared. A copy of all emergency plan documentation should be sent to the UNOLS office for inclusion in the Emergency Plan file.
• General cruise emergency planning would benefit from documentation in existing UNOLS and RVOC marine safety publications.

Recompression Chambers

Findings

• A review of the history of academic research diving does not justify requirement of on-board recompression chambers.
• Chambers may be desirable for diving techniques/equipment that are outside the current practices of the scientific diving community .
• Of the chambers available, a double lock multi-place unit is the superior choice

Recommendations

• Normal at-sea scientific diving from UNOLS vessels does not require provision or use of an on-board recompression chamber.
• Diving beyond the experienced norm, especially in a remote site, should reviewed on a case-by-case basis as part of the dive planning process to determine if chamber is warranted
• The general level of emergency medical preparedness should be enhanced encouraging the training of crew members (and even interested research divers Emergency Medical Technicians) .
• In-water, oxygen decompression or the use of NITROX should be evaluated as techniques capable of providing greater safety margins.