Working Underwater: The Story of the Commercial Diving Industry

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THE ADCI RESHAPES ITSELF When I first became aware of the positive effects of the Association of Diving Contractors (ADC) I was a diving supervisor/diver with a few years experience in deep bounce and saturation diving, mostly working overseas. The first underwater convention I attended was in the late 1970s. I was working for Ocean Systems and had just completed a sixweek rotation on a exploration drill ship in Venezuela. My flight landed in New Orleans just as the underwater event was getting underway. What an eye opener the event was—all the latest equipment, all the latest research, and the people who were behind all the new technology, plus every bar in the French Quarter was full of divers. They were easy to spot since most were physically fit and wearing a waterproof watch. The equipment on display and technical papers were eye and brain candy to me. I just couldn’t get enough. This was where the shakers and movers of our industry gathered to talk about new procedures, equipment, research, and, of course, the camaraderie. I still have my copy of Decompression Sickness and its Therapy, organized by the Association of Diving Contractors and the Institute for Environmental Medicine. (University of Pennsylvania, April 1978, C. J. Lambertsen, editor.) I attended quite a few of these annual shows through the years but it wasn’t until a few years later that I was introduced to the inner workings of the ADCI while I was working for Andre Galerne (IUC). He had just been elected president of the ADCI and was fully engaged in the process of resetting and the association to include the inland divers, international members and the creation of Underwater Magazine. We had quite a few conversations about its purpose and direction of the ADC. He had a vision for the association. More years pass and I am appointed to the ADCI board of directors representing two major diving companies—Stolt and then Cal Dive International. Here is where the reality hit me (remember I am a card-carrying member) that every member of the board is sitting at the meetings with one goal—to ensure the standards and level of safety meet or exceed best industry standards, as well as regulatory standards. The meetings are interesting. After all, this is the heartbeat of commercial diving operational sanity. Some members have different views but, at the end of the day, the voting on each issue was completed via a majority consensus. A couple of years later I was honored to be elected to be chairman of the board and president of ADCI. This job lasted for six one-year terms. As one can imagine, this was not an easy job; you learn as each moment passes. During the first meeting I perspired like I was in a sauna. I learned to keep my mouth closed until others had spoken; I tried to keep my opinion till last. I studied and implemented “Robert’s Rules of Order” in a relaxed manner to allow a free exchange of ideas and opinions as everyone was entitled to express his opinion. I found myself at times acting as a referee rather than chairman. Fifteen-minute breaks helped to re-focus the agenda. We created an aggressive agenda to re-write the consensus standards for the twenty-first century, and a new evergreen standard now called the International Consensus Standards for Commercial Diving and Underwater Operations, 6.0 Edition. This was a major task because we started from scratch to completely review every issue and wrote the standards to meet and exceed best industry practices. This realized the new Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA was created in December 1970) likely would try to come up with safety rules that would be federally imposed. Industry leaders wanted to develop their own standard operating procedures and then if necessary, spar with OSHA over their adequacy and acceptability. “The OSHA threat did not go away just because we formed ADC and continued to work on the MTS safety standards,” Hughes said. “The day came when we were notified that...formal open hearings on diving safety standards would be held in Washington. I was elected to go to Washington and speak. I worked hard at putting together a passionate argument that ADC knew more about commercial diving than the government bureaucrats ever would. We wanted to convince OSHA to let us finish our standards and then have them accepted.” Hughes flew to Washington and went to the building where the hearings were underway. There was a large auditorium with a podium on the main floor between the front seats and a raised stage. “I took a seat in the back of the auditorium and looked the situation over,” he said. “The government officials who were there to hear testimony were seated up on the stage behind a long table which stretched across the stage. There were at least fifteen of them, but they all seemed to be coming and going, talking to each other, or even sleeping. What they were not doing was listening to the people who were testifying.” Even worse, the podium was turned so it faced the audience in the auditorium, not the OSHA officials on the stage. WORKING UNDERWATER: The Story of the Commercial Diving Industry 54
took nearly three years and many hours on the part of the executive committee to finish. I cringe to think of the corrections and many typos we discovered. We also reviewed the by-laws of the association and added teeth to the membership, where if a member of the association acts in a manner disregarding the consensus standards the board can review and either terminate or suspend the membership of the company. Why, you ask? Well, if one company acts foolishly and unsafe by ignoring the consensus standards it affects the credibility of every member of the association. We also initiated a mandatory reporting of accidents and fatalities, as well as membership audits of personnel document and equipment inspection, maintenance, and testing. The new standards have: • A minimum bailout bottle capacity for all depths. • Emergency Diver Evacuation Standards requiring a means of diver evacuation from saturation systems. • PVHO maintenance guide. • Contaminated water diving guide. • Diving on DP vessels. • Translated into Spanish and Chinese. Various new committees were formed: • Saturation Diving Safety Committee. • Civil Engineering Diving Committee. • Medical Physician Committee. How did this help the association? The membership was one hundred percent behind this and the response from our regulatory agencies was very positive. Working relationships were signed with the U.S. Coast Guard, OSHA and ANSI (American National Standards Institute), and ACDE (Association of Commercial Diving Educators). Yes, the Association of Diving Contractors International has been a very positive experience for the industry and of course me. It was an honor to be a part of the association. The future is very bright for the ADCI. The ongoing question is, “What are we doing well and what can we do to make it better to uphold our values of safety, education, and communication?” Finally, we cannot forget Phil Newsum who has been the focal point of the success the association since he first became executive director…he gets things done. Thank you Phil. - Bill Crowley Past President, ADCI The Divex display from the 1991 ADCI convention. THE HISTORY OF THE ADCI 55
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WORKING UNDERWATER The Story of the
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WORKING UNDERWATER The Story of the
Page 5 and 6: An early day diver suiting up. CONT
Page 7 and 8: Mainstream Commercial Divers, Inc.
Page 9 and 10: THE HISTORY OF COMMERCIAL DIVING Wh
Page 11 and 12: Oppian in the second century A.D:
Page 13 and 14: ell was lowered into the Tagus Rive
Page 15 and 16: 1788, when John Smeaton (1724-1792)
Page 17 and 18: With the world’s first practical
Page 19 and 20: Charles Deane died in 1848, but bro
Page 21 and 22: usiness beyond salvage work to incl
Page 23 and 24: In the spring of 1841, as Green wal
Page 25 and 26: SCUBA The common perception is that
Page 27 and 28: valve. Exhaled air escaped from und
Page 29 and 30: THE UNDERSEA GOURMET George W. Full
Page 31 and 32: e used in 1972 was referred to as a
Page 33 and 34: In 1878, Paul Bert, a French physio
Page 35 and 36: A two-lock recompression tank (abov
Page 37 and 38: THE HISTORY OF COMMERCIAL DIVING 35
Page 39 and 40: During the war, the focus on diving
Page 41 and 42: diving helped revolutionize the oil
Page 43 and 44: of human divers. Progress slowed wi
Page 45 and 46: ADVENTURE ( AND TRAGEDY) BENEATH TH
Page 47 and 48: world when it recovered a grapefrui
Page 49 and 50: As the industry embraces technologi
Page 51 and 52: can get up close and have a tactile
Page 53 and 54: THE HISTORY OF THE ADCI FORMING ADC
Page 55: Again the U.S. Navy played a large
Page 59 and 60: THE ADCI CONTINUES TO BUILD UPON IT
Page 61 and 62: CELEBRATING THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF
Page 63 and 64: SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Delgado, Jame
Page 65 and 66: SHARING THE HERITAGE SPECIAL THANKS
Page 67 and 68: The year 1989 proved to be a monume
Page 69 and 70: By 1998 the company was well into d
Page 71 and 72: services are performed from its cor
Page 73 and 74: young crew member named Ray Kronfro
Page 75 and 76: with Brennan on numerous opportunit
Page 77 and 78: During the 1950s, oil and gas produ
Page 79 and 80: and Alcatel Fiber Optics in Cable l
Page 81 and 82: divers with Eason as the site Dive
Page 83 and 84: comprehensive set of safety standar
Page 85 and 86: “Work was not steady during the e
Page 87 and 88: extensive expertise in marine engin
Page 89 and 90: custom design and fabrication of sm
Page 91 and 92: in/out for lower tunnel repairs. Wo
Page 93 and 94: Global was also one of the first su
Page 95 and 96: McClure started his diving career a
Page 97 and 98: This primary regional location of A
Page 99 and 100: photographs and video documentation
Page 101 and 102: Marine Engineering in Vina del Mar
Page 103 and 104: years been overshadowed by W. H. St
Page 105 and 106: Today, MHA is comprised of approxim
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U.S. Underwater Services, LLC has a
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Looking back on a long and successf
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Chesapeake Bay Diving, Inc., based
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ASSOCIATION OF DIVING CONTRACTORS I
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR M IKE C OX Mike Co
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LEADERSHIP SPONSORS ISBN: 978-1-944
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