Know your way around a wreck

[Bobanderson]

Well, its that winter time when it gets light at half nine and dark again by 3 so thoughts slide to the season coming.. the one thing that I do more and more is try and do a dive brief before each dive so that the troops know what they are going to see before they get there. However, these tend to be pretty specific to the individual sites and often assume a level of knowledge that is not necessarily true. One day I got miffed with the sea of blank faces surrounding me as clearly no one had any idea of what I was talking about so I went back to the "here is a ship, it has a bow and a stern" and surprisingly the mist lifted and it was quite well received. Now, just to counter the argument that I am being patronising, one of the punters did a brief on the masts and lifting gear on the Frankenwald based on his time at sea which was brilliant which proves the point that we can all be on both sides of a briefing. Anyway, the stuff I talked about got written down and stuck in Scuba Mag so many of you will have seen it: for those of you that haven't:

Wreck Discovery (http://www.mvhalton.co.uk/ships-blog/articles/wrecks-discovery-a-tour-of-a-typical-wrecks-features/)

Cheers

Bob

[Nickpicks]

Great article! I think I must have missed that in Scuba mag, unless it's in this month's which I haven't read yet.

[edward]

Very nice Bob. I share your love of engine rooms.

A few years back, the year after a friend died diving, I knelt on the gravel under the counter-stern of the Polkerris, a wreck he and I had done a lot of work on, and looked up. In the great vis the rudder and prop towering up above me was a comforting sight and I think that was part of what made me carry on diving - up till then I had been really unsure if I was still interested enough to carry on.

[Bobanderson]

Sad story but a good reminder of why to keep diving.....

[Woz]

Bob's briefings really brought the Scapa wrecks alive. And what with me being a ningeineer it was great to work out exactly where you were on a wreck instead of gazing at a load of mangled tedious scrap. Made a huge difference.

[Hickdive]

Excellent article that evokes the fascination of wreck diving. I'm not one for pretty fishes but wrecks each have a unique story and often unique engineering (unique in that you often won't see it anywhere else today).

By contrast, here's the septic take on wreck diving;

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/content/937-wreck-diving-here-s-what-you-need-know.html

[Snash]

Always used to use the following when asked by trainees what something they saw on a wreck was and I hadn't a Scooby:

Short and fat - thermal housing gasket

Long and thin - jib derrick

Always got nods of acknowledgement back. Am pretty sure that my "knowledge" has been passed down in all sincerity