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As a graduate of College of Oceanerring A-1 D.M.O Aquaonaut well done. Maybe added Carson’s disease and a simple break down of ATA 14.7 =33 feet under or 33,000 above and most importantly mention my mentor the GREAT Duke Odgen 🙏🏼 rip his face was copyrighted behind the mark5 helmet because of his pure dominance in the field with his legendary barbell mustache depicted in Scooby Doo cartoons etc. Btw a deep dive in to the rigorous training would be a great video! Out of 72 marine recon navy seal airborne rangers ROTC operators swat team leaders sky masters and all other walks of men of men I graduated with 16 . If you ever needed a first hand report I’d gladly help.
Please do the Sydney harbour bridge, you've referenced it's amount of steel and i think size in other vids. But haven't done one exclusively on the bridge itself
As a current saturation diver, one big correction I'd like to point out is that our saturation chambers are not submerged. Rather, they are kept on the surface but with equal pressure to the depth we are working at. We then enter a diving bell that is locked off of the system and lowered down to our working depth. Once the inside and outside pressures are equal, we can open the bottom door and exit for our 6ish hour dive. We also dive with an umbilical the feeds us our heliox, hot water, light, video and communication. It also sends our exhaled breathing gas back to the surface where the CO2 is removed, oxygen is added back in, and then sent back down to us.
Cool! What do you think about the dangers of the profession? Do you think it is one of the most dangerous profession there is, as some people say, or are you relatively safe?
I had the privilege of working in risk management for a major subsea company. Was the best and most interesting role I have done in my career, and I have done many things. Worked tirelessly over 8 years protecting and reducing risk for the divers. Never had an incident related to their safety, and that was no accident! Great content as usual!
I worked as a saturation technician in the 1990's aboard the worlds biggest dive vessel, Stadive. The dive crews spent 28 days "under pressure", 22 days working and 6 days decompressing. The crews spent most of the time at a living depth of 128 meters which equates to an O2 level of 2% and 98% helium. Best job I've done, loved it
@@moose2577 he means working at depth as opposed to recovering at depth. It varies from individual to individual. If you have some sort of background lergie you can be tired by 5 minutes or less. If you are at a very high level of fitness have been eating all the right foods and in yous late 20's you might manage 30 minutes at 400m (about the limit for commercial diving). As a general rule the deeper you go the faster you get knackered.
@Chip in4seven once your body is "Saturated" There is no limit. We Had a 4 man crew. Two divers in the Habitat on the deck resting.Two divers in the Bell on the bottom working. Of the two working divers one would be in the Bell tending hoses and gauges while the other did the job. We'd trade off every couple hours over a 10hr shift till it was our rest turn.
@@megaprojects9649 Another topic you might look into is the Navy Experimental Diving Unit. All the dive tables/time at depth and dive computers with all the funny gases are linked to these folks. These people are volunteer guinea pigs. Remember the movie Abyss? The scene where the guy breathes water? They came up with that.
I had a friend that welds undersea piplines around the world. He always worked over the winters in the North Atlantic and Pacific and would come home in May, buy a house and Corvette for cash, sell them in Sept and go back to work! He retired at 35 and now does real estate in Nevada
Fascinating video. One small correction, although heliox (or trimix, nitrogen, oxygen and helium) may reduce decompression times, it is primarily used to avoid nitrogen narcosis rather than the decompression sickness, keeping the partial pressure of nitrogen down to reduce the “drunk” effect mentioned at about 6:00. On dives below about 185 feet (56 meters) the oxygen content needs to be reduced below the normal 21% as well, since high partial pressures of oxygen can actually become toxic (oxygen toxicity or CNS oxygen toxicity). This is not medical advice, and all that :)
The oxygen percentage of a Sat diver @100 metres would be around 6 -7 % which would give a partial pressure of 660 mb to 770....optimum is 700 mb..the depletion of oxygen due to metabolic use is made up by pure 02 carefully injected and monitored through the gas reclaim system.
Beyond 30m nitrogen becomes narcotic… you want to keep your PPO2 level below 1.6 (pressure in atmospheres X O2 percentage) Oxygen becomes toxic above this level, 1.6 equals 1.6 atmospheres.. at 1.6 and above you risk having a seizure, breathing Nitrox or Nitrogen Enriched Air can lengthen the time you can stay at depth, but to go down far you need to add Helium (Nitrogen can give you the Shakes at depth also) to the mixture all the way to 80% Helium or so (one con about Helium is that you can feel colder, especially if you use it to inflate your dry suit it can cause hypothermia).There is Heliox (which is only Oxygen & Helium, only used in commercial Diving), Trimix which has Oxygen/Helum/Nitrogen and even Hydrox (Oxygen & Hydrogen, but is dangerous because it is explosive). There are 3 types of mixes Hyperoxic Trimix, Normoxic Trimix, and Hypoxic Trimix, all these describe the amount of Oxygen in the mixtures, (normal Air has 21% Oxygen, 79% Nitrogen and sometimes small traces of other inert gases)
Lets all just take a moment to appreciate Simon Whistler and his Team (of slaves). This man has taken me on a legendary journey, experiencing a plethora of wildy different subjects over an immense spectrum. I'm hugely grateful for getting these glimpses into so many unique walks of life across the modern day and throughout history. Thank You Sir Much Love 💙🖤💜🖤❤️
I explored this career as a youth. It was my idea of a dream job. I'm currently a certified rescue diver,it's a certification level, not my job,but I recognize the extreme danger in the profession. Capt.Bob, SV ( Sailing Vessel) 27th Chance, Tampa Fl. It's known as off gassing. Omega seamaster 300 diver. Helium escape value. Simon, of all your channels, and I subscribe to them all,and have watched every episode. This is my most relatable. Thank you !
I wanna get my open water diving classes done. I actually have family right in weeki wachee, FL. I'm in Maine and I don't think I'd want to take classes from Maine.
@@MassHysteriaHD You can get an open water certification from most dive shops. Likely less than $200 plus books and equipment. Generally the required equipment is mask ,snorkel, and fins.
@@sailinbob11 Yes, but I don't trust these divers up here in Maine. Our state is filled with a bunch of idiots. Probably corner cutting and making shortcuts. I'd trust the Florida divers more 👍
One of my best friends, four years older than me, the guy that introduced me to Rock & Roll when I was age 10, died doing this exact type of work. I miss him greatly since it happened 15 years ago.
My grandmothers brother died from the bends. He was an inventor and was working on a diving helmet he would go down in the blue holes at needmore indiana where they quarry limestone. He stayed down too long and came up too fast. this was back in the 30's or 40's he was 19 when he passed. Brilliant family. Her other brothers were a doctor and a physicist.
I am a PADI MSDT(Master Scuba DIver Trainer) and you don't get lung injuries from descending quickly, in fact the lungs can completely compress and re-inflate on ascent during breath hold diving.
nope, the Lungs can not complete compress, sorry to tell you but there is a huge risk for the lungs to collapse if they get compress, this happens a lot with people that practice professional free diving , it does not really happen in scuba diving because actually your lungs don't collapse cause you are having the same amount of air in your lung all the time.
This is the first video in the series where I have physically been to the the places Simon is talking about. At the 7:15 mark, there is a photo of where I completed my first saturation dive. Crazy
I'm surprised there was no mention of how Edmond Halley did a lot of work on diving bells during his life and he is one of the modern "inventors" of the bell, he really just improved upon previous recorded bell designs for commercial wreck diving.
As a former commercial diver, the worse part of getting bent was not the pain but rather the thoughts of not knowing if or when a N2 bubble will reach your heart or brain before you can get to a chamber. In my case it was type 1 DCS and was treated with O2 as there was no chamber in the area...I was lucky. I was within my tables and computer but the external conditions were not ideal in the north Pacific. Still the most satisfying career in my life!!
@Chip in4seven Only been bent once. There were several contributing factors from that day and the several days proceeding the event. Overexertion was definitely one of them.
I've been told by experienced commercial divers that there are many more new commercial divers trained every year than good jobs. Plus ROVs have displaced many saturation divers. You are a lot more likely to end up scraping boat hulls in muddy harbors for a whole lot less money than get a job doing saturation work..
I'm glad you pointed out the likelihood of success, no point for someone to invest into a career that's less likely to pan out than being a doctor or lawyer
Always love seeing my profession getting some notice. It is such a fun job the deeper you go the colder/darker it gets. Think people forget how dark it is down there. Thanks Simon!!!! Love it
Buddy of mine once got a 1000 dollars an hour because his best friend got his head bitten off and worse part he pet a deep sea monster only prior to his friends passing and everyone refused till there demands were meat. they gave everyone harpoon guns just in case but he knew using anything in the water which was black and harpoon gun was basically you taking the fish that ended you with you
@@unifiedhorizons2663 my friend he said “buddy of mine once got 1000 dollars an hour because his best friend got his head bitten off” it’s one comment above mine please learn to read ……
Having never done saturation diving but having headied up a SCUBA program at a major University in the USA for 25 years, You did a very nice job of describing the physiology of movement thru the water column . Well done.
I´m a NAUI Diving instructor and have done some free diving. Sat-diving scares the shyte out of me. You are locked in a cycle that is out of your control, and it is a major strain on your body. No way for me. Good video as always Simon :-)
The fact that I have heard/read so many current divers/ex deep sea divers are scared/dislike it so much makes it so unappealing to me 😅 good luck to those who want/like it, I wish them good health, but I'll leave it too! Haha
@@ispbrotherwolf I actually made comment on here my Uncle did it for many years, was always terrified I would not see him again. The toll it took on him long term was pretty full on.
@@scottessery100 I have heard the pay is seriously high but it all depends on who you work for, where you work and how experienced you are of course... but it's also insanely dangerous. There are interviews with people who have done the job, I think true geordie actually made a video about it (youtuber).. think I looked into it after watching that as it sounded crazy!
When I was a kid I wanted to be a commercial diver, I thought saturation diving was awesome. I Told my parents that, and they objected saying its not a good career and I wouldn't make much money, here I am an attorney now, and I should have just been a saturation diver and made more money than I do now :^)
Fascinating! Some of my favorite movies back in the day involved undersea stuff - The Abyss, and Leviathan, come to mind. Yes, they're probably very cheesy by today's standards but they were fun nonetheless, and the decompression/implosion effects were excellent. Some of the things that got talked about were 100% fantastical and went against physics too. But I've been fascinated by deep sea environments and the ways in which we can explore those environments ever since then! Also, a cousin of mine once worked on an offshore oil rig for about a decade (I think he was a roughneck). He'd spend three weeks on the rig, and one or two weeks off, but he said the dive crews had the worst, hardest, scariest job of anyone there. He also said they were all a little bit crazy which coming from THAT cousin is hilarious and a bit terrifying!!
Great video. At the beginning you go through most of the dangers that pressure / pressure changes can cause - I'd add two more that are among the most dangerous: (1) barotrauma when ascending (vs descending): risk of trapped air in say the lungs expanding quickly and damaging the surrounding tissue; and (2) oxygen poisoning - when breathing a partial pressure of oxygen > 1.4 atmospheres or so i.e. regular air at > 70 meters depth can cause rapid seizures and then death
I worked as a commercial diver for a few years. Those saturation divers really earn their pay. I'm not particularly claustrophobic, but bugger living in a decompression chamber.
I used to work for a marine construction company. These commercial divers are a different breed. You may be getting paid $100+ an hour but you better be ready to retire by 30-35 because your body won't last.
@Chip in4seven Im in same boat. Nothing deeper than 10m for me though. Ear drums are out of whack and tend not to allow me to equalize as well. Its been almost a decade since ive dove. Tend to stick to beaches and wakeboarding for my water fix.
@@mallettebretti mean after doing it for 5 years do you really need to make a lifelong career out of it? I don't think its intended for people to do all their lives, but better than flipping burgers
I dove recreationally with guys who used to do sat diving and they all said it’s definitely not a long term job as it takes a big toll on your body. 10yrs is about as much as the body and mental state can handle.
If anything this should show how adaptable humans are and how much our body’s can handle, who would have ever thought a human could submit themselves to such harsh environments and be perfectly fine. It truly is amazing what humans have done.
Hi there - recreational Technical diver here with a couple minor corrections and additions: 1. Narcosis can be caused by any inert gas, not just Nitrogen. Modern research has actually pointed to Carbon Dioxide buildup as a greater cause for narcosis than nitrogen. 2. Helium is mixed into divers' breathing gas to lessen the effects of narcosis, not decompression sickness/obligation. Helium, being a very thin gas, has the lowest narcotic potency of any potential breathing gas by far. 3. The decompression obligation of "one day for every 30 meters" is exclusive to saturation diving. The amount of decompression obligation is a complex function of both depth and time spent at depth (as well as the gas mixtures one is breathing). Saturation diving is pushing the body's capacity to absorb inert gas into tissues to the theoretical maximum for a given depth. For example, at my certification level I can dive to 45 minutes for 30 minutes and only incur roughly a half hour of decompression obligation, with ways to shorten it if I used additional mixtures of breathing gas. It's a complex subject and probably couldn't be handled in videos with the goal as being succinct as any of Simon's channels. I've read a very dense book on the subject and there are several more out there like it. 4. Another unmentioned hazard of hydrostatic pressure is Oxygen toxicity. Breathing oxygen over a certain partial pressure (meaning it could be any percentage of the breathing gas, given a high enough ambient pressure) leads to central nervous system impact, leading to various symptoms, the most extreme of which can be seizures that can easily lead to death when dealing with the other perils of diving. As such when diving to depths below about 45 meters (so for all saturation diving needs), oxygen is actually removed from the breathing gas to the point that it would be fatally hypoxic if breathed at a regular atmospheric pressure. It remains safe to breathe due to the human body functioning not on the percentage of oxygen in the breathing gas, but rather its overall pressure in the breathing gas. Again, another very complex subject that probably is too dense to be really mentioned well in one of these types of videos.
I agree it's a very complex topic, but it would have been nice if he'd at least mentioned oxygen toxicity, because it's important but so rarely mentioned in any media.
The hospital where I used to work had a hyperbaric chamber, and I transcribed reports that described all the ways such a chamber could be used. In fact, over the 14 years I did transcription, I only transcribed one report dealing with a diver who surfaced too quickly, who came to us from the nearby Navy base. Other conditions the chamber was used for were aiding recovery from extensive burns, healing of extensive wounds in people with compromised immunity systems, aiding recovery from carbon monoxide exposure, and one unusual one I transcribed: treatment of acute onset glaucoma.
There is a hyperbaric chamber at 1 major hospital in my city. I work at the other major adult hospital. I sent a patient across the city every second day for 2 weeks as ironically she needed the specialist care of my hospital for her intestinal failure. This was a last ditch attempt to get her guts working and prevent her from needing to have an intestinal tract transplant.....and it worked!
It is the uncontrolled rapid ascent that can cause lung barotrauma, if you hold your breath on the way up you might be dead by the surface. We are taught to actually punch someone in the stomach if they are panicked and bolting to the surface and holding their breath. It makes them exhale.
I went to commercial dive school aback in 2010 just before the deep water horizon incident and the moratorium that happened on diving just before I got out of school. Went to Louisiana for 6 months to try and find a job and never was able to find one. A lot of companies prefer you to have some background in some type of construction, service (military, firefighter etc.) or maritime work before hiring you. If you dk t have any of that you normally have to get with smaller companies that their safety records aren’t as good and willing to take on less skilled people. Really wanted to become a sat diver would have been great. Oh well school was an amazing time and got to do things that you never would normally.
Simon you should have mentioned the accident on the Byford Dolphin's diving bell I know it's a bit gruesome but it's one of the biggest accidents in the field
@@simplexicated you know I thought I heard this somewhere I guess it sounds like something he would do so many videos I seen them all but to many to keep up lol
Sur D 0 2, baby! You forgot Arterial Gas Embolism Simon (A.G.E). It’s also interesting that if you do get bent your more susceptible to it after that. On another note hands-down the best hangover cure I’ve ever experienced was when I was in dive school,the hyperbaric chamber it’s amazing what they do for your body. Great video man
Watch the movie , PIONEER. it's a true based movie about Sat Diving , back when they developed Sat Diving . I was a commercial diver in the Gulf of Mexico in the early 1990's .
Great video, but you only scratched the surface with Comex. They set the standard with their Hydra experimental dives. As far as I know they even developed breathinggasses still used today.
I dive and got bent once. Spend a few hours for a couple of days in a Plexiglas tube at a hospital breathing 100% O2 at depth. Got hit in my right shoulder. Was on my 3rd deep dive and on the last dive I was drifting away for the boats anchor chain where you can not drift out to sea and do your safety stop. I had to make a run for the anchor chain fast because of strong current and to reach it had to swim up. To fast accent got me. Waited til the 2 day trip was over before heading to the hospital for treatment. OK now, no side effects.
Wow that fact about the watches and Rolex at the end is crazy! Who would have ever thought the helium you are breathing would destroy your expensive watch. That is just mind blowing to me
A commercial diver from 1977 through to 1997. Then back offshore with subsea7 in 2012. Sat with 34u chatting to the lads in the pot. I found SAT easier than basic air surface supplied. Sweating buckets in shallow gulf waters in the flash zone. Fitting a bloody great bracelet anode on vertical diagonal bracing.
My cousin worked as a saturation diver in the North Sea in the 1970s. He made enough money in 4 years to buy a trawler. But he has had health problems since.
Megaproject suggestion....the Mulberry harbors....if building your own harbors and dragging them across the channel for D-day isn't mega enough i dont know what is!....lessons learnt from dieppe etc etc.
Not sure if this fits as a megaproject, but i think that a video about "Live Aid" would be great. Considering how many artist performed, being broadcast to over 2 billion people all over the world.
Simon, Please cover aerial firefighters especially water bomber pilots. According to Wikipedia they can do up to 100 + takeoffs and landings under optimal conditions within a 4 hour mission while battling forest fires. Taking off and landing as you know is the most dangerous phase of flight. They have amazing flight skills and each year they lose a number of dedicated flight crews while accomplishing their high pressure tasks. Considering that fire bombing forest fires is a relatively new occupation all developed after the 2nd world war Generation 2 and 3 pilots are still refining the the skills required.
Love your narrative skills you know how to tell a story. Love all your works for the wealth of knowledge that they are. Many blessings and to a prosperous future
Suggestion for a megaproject / Biographic . Check out Thomas Telford . Born 15 miles from where im living , i had no idea how much this man achieved . Brdges , roads , canals , etc . He was never knighted in Britain . But he was in Sweden . Some fella . Here in Langholm , Dumfrieshire , we re more than proud of a man who changed the world
Please please do the new river gorge bridge in Fayetteville West Virginia. They jump off it annually and when it was built it was the longest and tallest arch bridge that had ever been constructed.
Sadly no one cares a Rats ass for Us..in my Career spanning 35 years i have lost 9 close friends 6 in one accident when a Diving vessel sank in persian gulf ..
Imagine picking up this job, thinking that you are going to make bank, only for your partner to say to you, "multiple leviathan class lifeforms detected".
I loved video Simon, but one thing you said want quite right. Yes, heliox helps with dcs. But the main thing with it is, heliox almost eliminates the chance of the diver getting narked.
In regards to the dangers of saturation diving look up the documentary Last Breath. Its the story of Chris Lemons and how he survived his umbilical being severed.
Diver here, that last comment about divers not using rolexes is super true. I use an Eon Core because it displays so many metrics. If you want redundancy a watch is nice, but not really essential. Dive computers can do so many more things ad are proven, so expensive analogue watches aren't really necessary for 99% of dives.
Divers don't use heliox to avoid decompression illness they use it to avoid nitrogen narcosis. Helium is more dangerous than nitrogen for decompression as it is a faster gas so comes out of solution in the body tissues faster meaning more chance of bubbles.
@@andersjjensen It is not as simple as solubility in water, the body is made up of lots of different materials, the solubility and speed of infusion and delusion of each will be different. So blood will take on and remove a dissolved gas quickly whereas bone marrow will be some what slower, you also need to consider solubility in fats, lipids etc.. You also need to consider the amount of gas that dissolves is proportional to the partial pressure of that gas, so even a low solubility gas will dissolve a lot at high partial pressures. For example ppHe of heliox at 300m is going to be around 29.8 bar so you are going to get 30 times as much as at surface pressure. Plus at ppHe in that region can lead to high pressure neurological syndrome which is a whole new way of having a bad day. Saturation divers will reach saturation in all parts of the body over a multi day shift, so their deco has to account for diffusion from the slowest tissue. A recreational diver would only saturate the fastest tissues.
I can’t believe I had no idea about these deep sea habitats that people live in. I always thought this was science fiction. This is the coolest thing ever.
If y'all wanna see kinda how living in the bell is like, jiggin with Jordan has a video of over night in a retired one. It's pretty neat but without the extreme pressures
No Jacques Cousteau reference? I thought the Rolex discovery was fascinating. Maybe each mega project and side project can end with an unexpected discovery. Well done for all your great vids Simon! Casual Criminalist is amazingly engaging when you go on your tangents.
Most Saturation Divers live onboard the 'Dive Support Vessel' in a Habitat and descend to the seabed for (usually), 12 hour shifts via a Diving Bell through the Moonpool.
In my early teens, I genuinely considered saturation diving/underwater welding as a career. Then I read about the Byford Dolphin accident. To quote a great man, “Hard no!”
Nope you can get Nitrogen Narcosis at a mere 18 meters though it is rare. Most people will get it by 30 meters. Also commercial divers go to 400 meters on a regular basis in the North Sea. Comex have been working on extending that to 650 meters since 1992.
Around 30 years or so ago, I was at 180 ft in Cozumel on a wall dive... Was running independent 80s... Was breathing off of one tank, but didn't realize that the pressure gauge I was looking at was for the other tank... When I finally realized it, that tank was pretty low... The other tank still had enough air for the deco stops on the way back up though... Probably the most I've ever been narced... Darwin was sleeping on the job...
Rolex actually designed a watch that was attached to the vessel that first dove down to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in 1960 and then designed another watch to be attached to the sub that dove down there with James Cameron in 2012. Both watches survived the equivalent of over 15,000 psi of water pressure. Granted the watches didn’t have to deal with the added risk of helium changing pressure upon assent.
Nitrogen Narcosis is something that I always regretted not happening at like 5m of depth where I could enjoy it a bit at least. In 40m of depth with currents there is less time to do that
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As a graduate of College of Oceanerring A-1 D.M.O Aquaonaut well done. Maybe added Carson’s disease and a simple break down of ATA 14.7 =33 feet under or 33,000 above and most importantly mention my mentor the GREAT Duke Odgen 🙏🏼 rip his face was copyrighted behind the mark5 helmet because of his pure dominance in the field with his legendary barbell mustache depicted in Scooby Doo cartoons etc.
Btw a deep dive in to the rigorous training would be a great video! Out of 72 marine recon navy seal airborne rangers ROTC operators swat team leaders sky masters and all other walks of men of men I graduated with 16 .
If you ever needed a first hand report I’d gladly help.
Video posted hours ago, comment posted days ago! Ghost or demons most likely.
@@jwolske7818 probably because it’s behind a membership paywall and they get exclusive content
Please do the Sydney harbour bridge, you've referenced it's amount of steel and i think size in other vids. But haven't done one exclusively on the bridge itself
I missed a segment about oxygen toxicity.
As a current saturation diver, one big correction I'd like to point out is that our saturation chambers are not submerged. Rather, they are kept on the surface but with equal pressure to the depth we are working at. We then enter a diving bell that is locked off of the system and lowered down to our working depth. Once the inside and outside pressures are equal, we can open the bottom door and exit for our 6ish hour dive. We also dive with an umbilical the feeds us our heliox, hot water, light, video and communication. It also sends our exhaled breathing gas back to the surface where the CO2 is removed, oxygen is added back in, and then sent back down to us.
How can one start in this career?
@@flaviomonteiro1414Factboy explains how in the video.
My nan's sisters husband used to do sat diving. He got into it as he was in the merchant Navy.
He's told me some amazing stories.
Did that change at some point? And is it possible it's because of the Dolphin Byford accident?
Cool! What do you think about the dangers of the profession? Do you think it is one of the most dangerous profession there is, as some people say, or are you relatively safe?
I had the privilege of working in risk management for a major subsea company. Was the best and most interesting role I have done in my career, and I have done many things. Worked tirelessly over 8 years protecting and reducing risk for the divers. Never had an incident related to their safety, and that was no accident! Great content as usual!
Aha! I see what you did there.
We don't need your life story Philpott
@@seanrichards7421 you dont speak for me.
@@seanrichards7421 If I stacked Philpotts shit'; Richards- High, I'd still prefer it's company to your input.
Get Bends.
Delta P and that crab video always blew my mind.
I worked as a saturation technician in the 1990's aboard the worlds biggest dive vessel, Stadive. The dive crews spent 28 days "under pressure", 22 days working and 6 days decompressing. The crews spent most of the time at a living depth of 128 meters which equates to an O2 level of 2% and 98% helium. Best job I've done, loved it
1:05 - Chapter 1 - Ancient divers
2:35 - Chapter 2 - The 1st dive suits
4:30 - Chapter 3 - The dangers
7:40 - Mid roll ads
9:05 - Chapter 4 - Living in murket depths
13:45 - Chapter 5 - Extras
^_^
I was a SAT diver for a few years in the mid 2000s. Great job Simon the video covered the topic well.
@Chip in4seven if they have a moonpool (is that right?), doesn't that mean they're always at that depth(and pressure) until they surface?
@@moose2577 he means working at depth as opposed to recovering at depth. It varies from individual to individual. If you have some sort of background lergie you can be tired by 5 minutes or less. If you are at a very high level of fitness have been eating all the right foods and in yous late 20's you might manage 30 minutes at 400m (about the limit for commercial diving). As a general rule the deeper you go the faster you get knackered.
@Chip in4seven once your body is "Saturated" There is no limit. We Had a 4 man crew. Two divers in the Habitat on the deck resting.Two divers in the Bell on the bottom working. Of the two working divers one would be in the Bell tending hoses and gauges while the other did the job. We'd trade off every couple hours over a 10hr shift till it was our rest turn.
Thanks Dave. Glad to know we covered it well, there is surprisingly little information out there, especially on the habitats :)
@@megaprojects9649 Another topic you might look into is the Navy Experimental Diving Unit. All the dive tables/time at depth and dive computers with all the funny gases are linked to these folks. These people are volunteer guinea pigs. Remember the movie Abyss? The scene where the guy breathes water? They came up with that.
I had a friend that welds undersea piplines around the world. He always worked over the winters in the North Atlantic and Pacific and would come home in May, buy a house and Corvette for cash, sell them in Sept and go back to work! He retired at 35 and now does real estate in Nevada
Yeah, because buying and selling houses are super quick transactions. 😂
@@pamelah6431 it is when you pay cash. Document signatures are all you need
Fascinating video. One small correction, although heliox (or trimix, nitrogen, oxygen and helium) may reduce decompression times, it is primarily used to avoid nitrogen narcosis rather than the decompression sickness, keeping the partial pressure of nitrogen down to reduce the “drunk” effect mentioned at about 6:00. On dives below about 185 feet (56 meters) the oxygen content needs to be reduced below the normal 21% as well, since high partial pressures of oxygen can actually become toxic (oxygen toxicity or CNS oxygen toxicity). This is not medical advice, and all that :)
Thanks for the info, please read my comment and let me know your opinion.
The oxygen percentage of a Sat diver @100 metres would be around 6 -7 % which would give a partial pressure of 660 mb to 770....optimum is 700 mb..the depletion of oxygen due to metabolic use is made up by pure 02 carefully injected and monitored through the gas reclaim system.
Beyond 30m nitrogen becomes narcotic… you want to keep your PPO2 level below 1.6 (pressure in atmospheres X O2 percentage) Oxygen becomes toxic above this level, 1.6 equals 1.6 atmospheres.. at 1.6 and above you risk having a seizure, breathing Nitrox or Nitrogen Enriched Air can lengthen the time you can stay at depth, but to go down far you need to add Helium (Nitrogen can give you the Shakes at depth also) to the mixture all the way to 80% Helium or so (one con about Helium is that you can feel colder, especially if you use it to inflate your dry suit it can cause hypothermia).There is Heliox (which is only Oxygen & Helium, only used in commercial Diving), Trimix which has Oxygen/Helum/Nitrogen and even Hydrox (Oxygen & Hydrogen, but is dangerous because it is explosive). There are 3 types of mixes Hyperoxic Trimix, Normoxic Trimix, and Hypoxic Trimix, all these describe the amount of Oxygen in the mixtures, (normal Air has 21% Oxygen, 79% Nitrogen and sometimes small traces of other inert gases)
Nitrox is usually used to shrink deco times.
Lets all just take a moment to appreciate Simon Whistler and his Team (of slaves). This man has taken me on a legendary journey, experiencing a plethora of wildy different subjects over an immense spectrum. I'm hugely grateful for getting these glimpses into so many unique walks of life across the modern day and throughout history.
Thank You Sir
Much Love
💙🖤💜🖤❤️
All built on Danny's back in the basement.
Thank you. I'll pass this message on to the basement.
@@megaprojects9649 hahahahaha
Love your videos simon! You should do the ITER fusion reactor sometime as it's megaproject inside of a megaproject inside a bunch of other projects.
As a wristwatch aficionado I appreciate the addition of a dive watch segment. Thanks for another awesome Megaprojects video Simon!
I explored this career as a youth. It was my idea of a dream job. I'm currently a certified rescue diver,it's a certification level, not my job,but I recognize the extreme danger in the profession. Capt.Bob, SV ( Sailing Vessel) 27th Chance, Tampa Fl. It's known as off gassing. Omega seamaster 300 diver. Helium escape value. Simon, of all your channels, and I subscribe to them all,and have watched every episode. This is my most relatable. Thank you !
Wow. Being a rescue diver is bad ass, man! Well done to you, my friend.
@@americantopteam135s-t7 it's an achievement. Thanks...
I wanna get my open water diving classes done. I actually have family right in weeki wachee, FL. I'm in Maine and I don't think I'd want to take classes from Maine.
@@MassHysteriaHD You can get an open water certification from most dive shops. Likely less than $200 plus books and equipment. Generally the required equipment is mask ,snorkel, and fins.
@@sailinbob11 Yes, but I don't trust these divers up here in Maine. Our state is filled with a bunch of idiots. Probably corner cutting and making shortcuts. I'd trust the Florida divers more 👍
One of my best friends, four years older than me, the guy that introduced me to Rock & Roll when I was age 10, died doing this exact type of work. I miss him greatly since it happened 15 years ago.
They have..
@@robertlafferty3790 Don't quite understand? Hope that it is positive. Please clarify.
What were the circumstances related to his passing?
My grandmothers brother died from the bends. He was an inventor and was working on a diving helmet he would go down in the blue holes at needmore indiana where they quarry limestone. He stayed down too long and came up too fast. this was back in the 30's or 40's he was 19 when he passed. Brilliant family. Her other brothers were a doctor and a physicist.
I am a PADI MSDT(Master Scuba DIver Trainer) and you don't get lung injuries from descending quickly, in fact the lungs can completely compress and re-inflate on ascent during breath hold diving.
nope, the Lungs can not complete compress, sorry to tell you but there is a huge risk for the lungs to collapse if they get compress, this happens a lot with people that practice professional free diving , it does not really happen in scuba diving because actually your lungs don't collapse cause you are having the same amount of air in your lung all the time.
This is the first video in the series where I have physically been to the the places Simon is talking about.
At the 7:15 mark, there is a photo of where I completed my first saturation dive. Crazy
I'm surprised there was no mention of how Edmond Halley did a lot of work on diving bells during his life and he is one of the modern "inventors" of the bell, he really just improved upon previous recorded bell designs for commercial wreck diving.
As a former commercial diver, the worse part of getting bent was not the pain but rather the thoughts of not knowing if or when a N2 bubble will reach your heart or brain before you can get to a chamber. In my case it was type 1 DCS and was treated with O2 as there was no chamber in the area...I was lucky. I was within my tables and computer but the external conditions were not ideal in the north Pacific. Still the most satisfying career in my life!!
@Chip in4seven Only been bent once. There were several contributing factors from that day and the several days proceeding the event. Overexertion was definitely one of them.
I've been told by experienced commercial divers that there are many more new commercial divers trained every year than good jobs. Plus ROVs have displaced many saturation divers. You are a lot more likely to end up scraping boat hulls in muddy harbors for a whole lot less money than get a job doing saturation work..
I'm glad you pointed out the likelihood of success, no point for someone to invest into a career that's less likely to pan out than being a doctor or lawyer
Supply and Demand. Supply and Demand . You're not gonna get out of dive school and start Sat Diving . They look at experience capabilities and time .
Sat jobs are far less then it was years ago .
Always love seeing my profession getting some notice. It is such a fun job the deeper you go the colder/darker it gets. Think people forget how dark it is down there. Thanks Simon!!!! Love it
Not me. I'm an ROV pilot, and have also experienced the darkness first-hand.
Buddy of mine once got a 1000 dollars an hour because his best friend got his head bitten off and worse part he pet a deep sea monster only prior to his friends passing and everyone refused till there demands were meat. they gave everyone harpoon guns just in case but he knew using anything in the water which was black and harpoon gun was basically you taking the fish that ended you with you
@@unifiedhorizons2663 got his head bit off by what?? Lol
@@mookiestewart3776 he never said just said he lost his head
@@unifiedhorizons2663 my friend he said “buddy of mine once got 1000 dollars an hour because his best friend got his head bitten off” it’s one comment above mine please learn to read ……
Having never done saturation diving but having headied up a SCUBA program at a major University in the USA for 25 years, You did a very nice job of describing the physiology of movement thru the water column . Well done.
WRT sat divers, look up "aseptic bone necrosis" aka Dysbaric osteonecrosis. Also Heliox is used to reduce Oxygen toxicity at high partial pressures
I´m a NAUI Diving instructor and have done some free diving. Sat-diving scares the shyte out of me. You are locked in a cycle that is out of your control, and it is a major strain on your body. No way for me. Good video as always Simon :-)
The fact that I have heard/read so many current divers/ex deep sea divers are scared/dislike it so much makes it so unappealing to me 😅 good luck to those who want/like it, I wish them good health, but I'll leave it too! Haha
@@murder13love Totally agree :-)
@@ispbrotherwolf I actually made comment on here my Uncle did it for many years, was always terrified I would not see him again. The toll it took on him long term was pretty full on.
@@murder13love is the pay about right?
@@scottessery100 I have heard the pay is seriously high but it all depends on who you work for, where you work and how experienced you are of course... but it's also insanely dangerous.
There are interviews with people who have done the job, I think true geordie actually made a video about it (youtuber).. think I looked into it after watching that as it sounded crazy!
When I was a kid I wanted to be a commercial diver, I thought saturation diving was awesome. I Told my parents that, and they objected saying its not a good career and I wouldn't make much money, here I am an attorney now, and I should have just been a saturation diver and made more money than I do now :^)
Lol when I got out of college I wanted to go into commercial diving but my family didn’t like the dangers associated with it
Imagine living your life based on what your parents tell you, that must suck man you wouldnt do anything you really want to do
You make more as an attorney
Fascinating!
Some of my favorite movies back in the day involved undersea stuff - The Abyss, and Leviathan, come to mind. Yes, they're probably very cheesy by today's standards but they were fun nonetheless, and the decompression/implosion effects were excellent. Some of the things that got talked about were 100% fantastical and went against physics too. But I've been fascinated by deep sea environments and the ways in which we can explore those environments ever since then!
Also, a cousin of mine once worked on an offshore oil rig for about a decade (I think he was a roughneck). He'd spend three weeks on the rig, and one or two weeks off, but he said the dive crews had the worst, hardest, scariest job of anyone there. He also said they were all a little bit crazy which coming from THAT cousin is hilarious and a bit terrifying!!
Great video. At the beginning you go through most of the dangers that pressure / pressure changes can cause - I'd add two more that are among the most dangerous: (1) barotrauma when ascending (vs descending): risk of trapped air in say the lungs expanding quickly and damaging the surrounding tissue; and (2) oxygen poisoning - when breathing a partial pressure of oxygen > 1.4 atmospheres or so i.e. regular air at > 70 meters depth can cause rapid seizures and then death
I worked as a commercial diver for a few years. Those saturation divers really earn their pay. I'm not particularly claustrophobic, but bugger living in a decompression chamber.
I used to work for a marine construction company. These commercial divers are a different breed. You may be getting paid $100+ an hour but you better be ready to retire by 30-35 because your body won't last.
I can attest to this. Was done by 28. Less than 8 years of work. Last 3 of which were totally surface crew didnt dive.
@Chip in4seven Im in same boat. Nothing deeper than 10m for me though. Ear drums are out of whack and tend not to allow me to equalize as well. Its been almost a decade since ive dove. Tend to stick to beaches and wakeboarding for my water fix.
Thats simply not true
@@mallettebretti mean after doing it for 5 years do you really need to make a lifelong career out of it? I don't think its intended for people to do all their lives, but better than flipping burgers
I dove recreationally with guys who used to do sat diving and they all said it’s definitely not a long term job as it takes a big toll on your body. 10yrs is about as much as the body and mental state can handle.
Thats not true
If anything this should show how adaptable humans are and how much our body’s can handle, who would have ever thought a human could submit themselves to such harsh environments and be perfectly fine. It truly is amazing what humans have done.
A subject that has always fascinated & terrified me in equal proportions.
Great video idea. More dangerous jobs and activities plz
Maybe an episode on the technicalities of paratroopers HALO/HAHO jumping.
I really admire the courage and skill of sat divers. It's something I could never do (congenital issues) but I find it very interesting.
There was BBC documentary film called the last breath about saturation diving, genuinely one of the most incredible things I’ve ever seen.
Hi there - recreational Technical diver here with a couple minor corrections and additions:
1. Narcosis can be caused by any inert gas, not just Nitrogen. Modern research has actually pointed to Carbon Dioxide buildup as a greater cause for narcosis than nitrogen.
2. Helium is mixed into divers' breathing gas to lessen the effects of narcosis, not decompression sickness/obligation. Helium, being a very thin gas, has the lowest narcotic potency of any potential breathing gas by far.
3. The decompression obligation of "one day for every 30 meters" is exclusive to saturation diving. The amount of decompression obligation is a complex function of both depth and time spent at depth (as well as the gas mixtures one is breathing). Saturation diving is pushing the body's capacity to absorb inert gas into tissues to the theoretical maximum for a given depth. For example, at my certification level I can dive to 45 minutes for 30 minutes and only incur roughly a half hour of decompression obligation, with ways to shorten it if I used additional mixtures of breathing gas. It's a complex subject and probably couldn't be handled in videos with the goal as being succinct as any of Simon's channels. I've read a very dense book on the subject and there are several more out there like it.
4. Another unmentioned hazard of hydrostatic pressure is Oxygen toxicity. Breathing oxygen over a certain partial pressure (meaning it could be any percentage of the breathing gas, given a high enough ambient pressure) leads to central nervous system impact, leading to various symptoms, the most extreme of which can be seizures that can easily lead to death when dealing with the other perils of diving. As such when diving to depths below about 45 meters (so for all saturation diving needs), oxygen is actually removed from the breathing gas to the point that it would be fatally hypoxic if breathed at a regular atmospheric pressure. It remains safe to breathe due to the human body functioning not on the percentage of oxygen in the breathing gas, but rather its overall pressure in the breathing gas. Again, another very complex subject that probably is too dense to be really mentioned well in one of these types of videos.
I agree it's a very complex topic, but it would have been nice if he'd at least mentioned oxygen toxicity, because it's important but so rarely mentioned in any media.
The hospital where I used to work had a hyperbaric chamber, and I transcribed reports that described all the ways such a chamber could be used. In fact, over the 14 years I did transcription, I only transcribed one report dealing with a diver who surfaced too quickly, who came to us from the nearby Navy base. Other conditions the chamber was used for were aiding recovery from extensive burns, healing of extensive wounds in people with compromised immunity systems, aiding recovery from carbon monoxide exposure, and one unusual one I transcribed: treatment of acute onset glaucoma.
There is a hyperbaric chamber at 1 major hospital in my city. I work at the other major adult hospital. I sent a patient across the city every second day for 2 weeks as ironically she needed the specialist care of my hospital for her intestinal failure. This was a last ditch attempt to get her guts working and prevent her from needing to have an intestinal tract transplant.....and it worked!
It is the uncontrolled rapid ascent that can cause lung barotrauma, if you hold your breath on the way up you might be dead by the surface. We are taught to actually punch someone in the stomach if they are panicked and bolting to the surface and holding their breath. It makes them exhale.
I went to commercial dive school aback in 2010 just before the deep water horizon incident and the moratorium that happened on diving just before I got out of school. Went to Louisiana for 6 months to try and find a job and never was able to find one. A lot of companies prefer you to have some background in some type of construction, service (military, firefighter etc.) or maritime work before hiring you. If you dk t have any of that you normally have to get with smaller companies that their safety records aren’t as good and willing to take on less skilled people. Really wanted to become a sat diver would have been great. Oh well school was an amazing time and got to do things that you never would normally.
With a salary like that I'm guessing we'll be seeing Deep Dives with Simon Whistle popping up soon.
As someone who has panic attacks from time to time, being a saturation diver sounds terrifying
Doesn't even need to be sat. Imagine having to cough or sneeze cave diving 😂😂
Freaking out is not permitted. Cheers!
@@MassHysteriaHDdoes cave diving pay 500k per year?
Simon you should have mentioned the accident on the Byford Dolphin's diving bell I know it's a bit gruesome but it's one of the biggest accidents in the field
Or surface-D 🤮
The accident that changed saturation diving
That's the first thing that came to my mind when I saw the title of the video.
Simon did a video about BD
@@simplexicated you know I thought I heard this somewhere I guess it sounds like something he would do so many videos I seen them all but to many to keep up lol
Maximum respect to those that do this.
Sur D 0 2, baby! You forgot Arterial Gas Embolism Simon (A.G.E). It’s also interesting that if you do get bent your more susceptible to it after that. On another note hands-down the best hangover cure I’ve ever experienced was when I was in dive school,the hyperbaric chamber it’s amazing what they do for your body. Great video man
Another excellent episode. Thankyou Mega Team.
Let's take a moment to appreciate sat divers and commercial divers they do a lot to help our civilization today❤️
I would like to hear stories of weird things and events that these divers encountered while at these depths.
Look up the Byford Dolphin accident. Yuckers.
Find a commercial diver in a bar and he/she will jaw your ears off for hours. I'm thinking of writing a book.
Watch the movie , PIONEER. it's a true based movie about Sat Diving , back when they developed Sat Diving . I was a commercial diver in the Gulf of Mexico in the early 1990's .
@@stevehamilton3181 i believe everybody who was researching this topic already watched that videi
I am putting a bunch of sat and surface diving videos on my channel.
Great video, but you only scratched the surface with Comex. They set the standard with their Hydra experimental dives. As far as I know they even developed breathinggasses still used today.
I dive and got bent once. Spend a few hours for a couple of days in a Plexiglas tube at a hospital breathing 100% O2 at depth. Got hit in my right shoulder. Was on my 3rd deep dive and on the last dive I was drifting away for the boats anchor chain where you can not drift out to sea and do your safety stop. I had to make a run for the anchor chain fast because of strong current and to reach it had to swim up. To fast accent got me. Waited til the 2 day trip was over before heading to the hospital for treatment. OK now, no side effects.
Moonpool
Awesome and informative video as always Simon. The beard is looking magnificent.
Wow that fact about the watches and Rolex at the end is crazy! Who would have ever thought the helium you are breathing would destroy your expensive watch. That is just mind blowing to me
A commercial diver from 1977 through to 1997. Then back offshore with subsea7 in 2012. Sat with 34u chatting to the lads in the pot. I found SAT easier than basic air surface supplied. Sweating buckets in shallow gulf waters in the flash zone. Fitting a bloody great bracelet anode on vertical diagonal bracing.
My cousin worked as a saturation diver in the North Sea in the 1970s. He made enough money in 4 years to buy a trawler. But he has had health problems since.
Yeah I’m guessing the protocols and regulations back then were pretty lacking lol
Megaproject suggestion....the Mulberry harbors....if building your own harbors and dragging them across the channel for D-day isn't mega enough i dont know what is!....lessons learnt from dieppe etc etc.
Not sure if this fits as a megaproject, but i think that a video about "Live Aid" would be great. Considering how many artist performed, being broadcast to over 2 billion people all over the world.
Simon, Please cover aerial firefighters especially water bomber pilots. According to Wikipedia they can do up to 100 + takeoffs and landings under optimal conditions within a 4 hour mission while battling forest fires. Taking off and landing as you know is the most dangerous phase of flight. They have amazing flight skills and each year they lose a number of dedicated flight crews while accomplishing their high pressure tasks.
Considering that fire bombing forest fires is a relatively new occupation all developed after the 2nd world war Generation 2 and 3 pilots are still refining the the skills required.
Love your narrative skills you know how to tell a story. Love all your works for the wealth of knowledge that they are. Many blessings and to a prosperous future
Suggestion for a megaproject / Biographic . Check out Thomas Telford . Born 15 miles from where im living , i had no idea how much this man achieved . Brdges , roads , canals , etc . He was never knighted in Britain . But he was in Sweden . Some fella . Here in Langholm , Dumfrieshire , we re more than proud of a man who changed the world
Thank you
Were I 40 years younger I'd give this field serious consideration. Inner-space vs outer-space, how cool.
Couldn’t agree more, but with the potential of running into huge scary monsters in pitch black water :/
@@seymaple and there be monster down there for sure LOL.
Please please do the new river gorge bridge in Fayetteville West Virginia. They jump off it annually and when it was built it was the longest and tallest arch bridge that had ever been constructed.
These divers deserve the same level of respect as astronauts.
They do basically the same thing under pressure, the Astronaut does in Vacuum.
Sadly no one cares a Rats ass for Us..in my Career spanning 35 years i have lost 9 close friends 6 in one accident when a Diving vessel sank in persian gulf ..
@@Gunni1972 space doesn't have huge animals tho
@@a.m.1401you sound sure.
Imagine picking up this job, thinking that you are going to make bank, only for your partner to say to you, "multiple leviathan class lifeforms detected".
You should do a megaprojects video on the TSR2
Wow! Super interesting! Great job Simon and Megaprojects team!
Much respect!!!! Y'all are amazing.
Loved the nod to dive watches at the end. Miss the days when timepieces were valued for function over fashion.
I loved video Simon, but one thing you said want quite right. Yes, heliox helps with dcs. But the main thing with it is, heliox almost eliminates the chance of the diver getting narked.
I'd love to see more videos about dangerous careers
This one was pretty good Simon!
In regards to the dangers of saturation diving look up the documentary Last Breath.
Its the story of Chris Lemons and how he survived his umbilical being severed.
I watched that last night!
@@gordonlawrence1448 I dive and it scared the crap out of me. Lol
I’ve actually interviewed Chris for a project about SAT Diving back in Marchuc
@@BrendenFlanagan Thats awsome
Wish the video was longer to learn my things. Maybe you could do a part 2 on this subject it's very interesting stuff. Take care and be safe.
Greg
Love this stuff!!!
Diver here, that last comment about divers not using rolexes is super true. I use an Eon Core because it displays so many metrics. If you want redundancy a watch is nice, but not really essential. Dive computers can do so many more things ad are proven, so expensive analogue watches aren't really necessary for 99% of dives.
I think he was referring to Commercial Diving , no watch or computer necessary
My backup job is to become a saturation diver, this was really fun to watch.
Divers don't use heliox to avoid decompression illness they use it to avoid nitrogen narcosis. Helium is more dangerous than nitrogen for decompression as it is a faster gas so comes out of solution in the body tissues faster meaning more chance of bubbles.
Thanks.. I was wondering. The solubility of Helium in water is next to nothing, but the solubility of Nitrogen is somewhat decent.
@@andersjjensen It is not as simple as solubility in water, the body is made up of lots of different materials, the solubility and speed of infusion and delusion of each will be different. So blood will take on and remove a dissolved gas quickly whereas bone marrow will be some what slower, you also need to consider solubility in fats, lipids etc.. You also need to consider the amount of gas that dissolves is proportional to the partial pressure of that gas, so even a low solubility gas will dissolve a lot at high partial pressures. For example ppHe of heliox at 300m is going to be around 29.8 bar so you are going to get 30 times as much as at surface pressure. Plus at ppHe in that region can lead to high pressure neurological syndrome which is a whole new way of having a bad day.
Saturation divers will reach saturation in all parts of the body over a multi day shift, so their deco has to account for diffusion from the slowest tissue. A recreational diver would only saturate the fastest tissues.
I can’t believe I had no idea about these deep sea habitats that people live in. I always thought this was science fiction. This is the coolest thing ever.
If y'all wanna see kinda how living in the bell is like, jiggin with Jordan has a video of over night in a retired one. It's pretty neat but without the extreme pressures
Thank you for the information.
Loving the intro sounding like old school Black Sabbath
My uncle did this for 15-20 years, was always terrified I wouldn't see him again.
I suddenly really wanna play through Subnautica for like the 8th time.
We don’t depend on the bottle but we do carry a bottle or 2 depending on depth distance to the bell and in case our UMBILICAL gets pinched/cut
They deserve every penny
No Jacques Cousteau reference? I thought the Rolex discovery was fascinating. Maybe each mega project and side project can end with an unexpected discovery. Well done for all your great vids Simon! Casual Criminalist is amazingly engaging when you go on your tangents.
That was cool!
Always interesting!
Most Saturation Divers live onboard the 'Dive Support Vessel' in a Habitat and descend to the seabed for (usually), 12 hour shifts via a Diving Bell through the Moonpool.
Usually just known as a chamber
@@jasonwise5601 True!
Another great video could work Simon
In my early teens, I genuinely considered saturation diving/underwater welding as a career. Then I read about the Byford Dolphin accident.
To quote a great man, “Hard no!”
Best job I ever had
Nope you can get Nitrogen Narcosis at a mere 18 meters though it is rare. Most people will get it by 30 meters. Also commercial divers go to 400 meters on a regular basis in the North Sea. Comex have been working on extending that to 650 meters since 1992.
Around 30 years or so ago, I was at 180 ft in Cozumel on a wall dive... Was running independent 80s... Was breathing off of one tank, but didn't realize that the pressure gauge I was looking at was for the other tank... When I finally realized it, that tank was pretty low... The other tank still had enough air for the deco stops on the way back up though... Probably the most I've ever been narced...
Darwin was sleeping on the job...
Rolex actually designed a watch that was attached to the vessel that first dove down to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in 1960 and then designed another watch to be attached to the sub that dove down there with James Cameron in 2012. Both watches survived the equivalent of over 15,000 psi of water pressure. Granted the watches didn’t have to deal with the added risk of helium changing pressure upon assent.
They deserve every cent of that 300k!!
Cool chrome dome
I’m reminded of The Abyss, good movie…
That was the system test video on every ship I ever set foot on.
preventing diving probloms are easy and simple to prevent yet still occur
I think living in that close of quarters with 5 other people is almost more remarkable and scary than the underwater business.
I once held my breath in the bathtub for upwards of 15-20+ seconds, so I can relate to this video
Nitrogen Narcosis is something that I always regretted not happening at like 5m of depth where I could enjoy it a bit at least. In 40m of depth with currents there is less time to do that