Best Practices for using hull divers

Questions about using a hull diver?

     Maybe you’re new boat ownership, or maybe you’re new to boating in South Florida. Either way you’re in the right place to learn and better understand;

  • What Questions to ask a diver or dive company
  • What is the general scope of work performed by a hull diver
  • Challenges facing your diver
  • Safety

Keep reading below to explore the answers to these questions. If you find that you still have some questions not answered on this page, please by all means give us a call or shoot us a message.

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Questions about using a hull diver?

     Maybe you’re new boat ownership, or maybe you’re new to boating in South Florida. Either way you’re in the right place to learn and better understand;

  • What Questions to ask a diver or dive company
  • What is the general scope of work performed by a hull diver
  • Challenges facing your diver
  • Safety

Keep reading below to explore the answers to these questions. If you find that you still have some more questions not answered on this page, please by all means give us a call or shoot us a message.

What is the scope of work performed by a hull diver?

Setting expectations

The scope of work practiced, in general, should be the limits of the divers training or experience. Also add this in combination with their comfort zone. So with this caveat aside;

A hull diver can be expected to be able to;

  • Clean your boat without damaging components
  • Inspections
  • Stock, Source and change all your anodes
  • Search and recovery
  • light underwater dock maintenance
  • Emergency patches and in-water repairs.
  • Propeller removal and installs
  • unfouling line or other debris from your propellers
  • Salvage*

So when speaking with a hull diver or dive company, it’s worth going over a few of these points when picking your service provider. Which one of these is most important to you? Some dives can only provide a few items from the list above while other companies can general supply only these services.

*A note on salvage. Many hull diving companies do not offer vessel salvage. Some do offer it but only if the vessel sank in it’s slip. However, this normally isn’t a deal breaker.

What falls outside of scope

a short list of things that are outside of the scope of practice for a diver (and their insurance policies);

  • Operate your boat in any way*
  • Adjusting the lines on your boat
  • In general, really anything thats topside related.

*This includes asking your diver to turn your boat on so that the trim tabs go down for cleaning.

It bears repeating that also what falls outside of scope are tasks that are either outside of the comfort level of the diver  and / or the limitations of the service menu from the company itself. Asking or pressuring a diver or company to perform tasks outside of scope will most likely create more issues.

Picking a hull diving company

Price is important. and price cannot be untangled from Value. This topic may get it’s own blog post in the future due to spectrum of prices out there offered by hull cleaners. However, before that happens, it’s important for you, the customer, to try and make an understanding of how the hull diving company is charging. You can ask some of the following question to try and get an idea about things,

  • Are your rates flat or dynamic?
    • meaning will they charge you the same for partial cleanings the same as hull cleanings: flat rate
  • What’s your hourly rate?
    • this can be anywhere from $100 – $200 / hr / diver.
  • What discounts do you offer?

The certifications you are more interested in knowing about aren’t really their scuba diving certifications. Beyond open water, the advanced levels of scuba skillset don’t really apply to hull diving. Some dive companies advertise themselves as licensed and insured. or certified and insured. To the knowledge of this author, there is no body that administers licenses or certifications for hull cleaning. It’s marketing. However, as previously mentioned, there are some certifications that are useful, they are listed below:

  • NDT certification
    • NDT stands for Non-Destructive Testing. There are 3 levels of certification. Level 2 certification should be sufficient.
  • Rigging
    • one body that certifies workers in rigging is NCCER.
  • Commercial Diving
    • there are a few curriculum bodies that certify divers as commercial divers. they are ACDE and DCBC.
    • it can be estimated that about 40% of hull divers are also certified commercial divers.
    • Commercial diving training better equips students for working dives.

Questions for a hull diver

Your anodes protect vital components from deteriorating from an electro-chemical exchange that takes place in the water. It helps to have an idea how fast their burning out. With the exception of very small anodes, if your anodes aren’t lasting at least 6 months, there may be an issue that will require a separate special skillset to investigate it. If you want to learn more about anodes, click here

Most boat owners are consciences about staying on top of their bottom paint. Your diver has a better eye on it than anyone else. They should be able to tell you when your marker coat is showing or when your hull is starting to get exposed.

This should help you get an idea of how long your paint might last if for example, your diver tells you something like “heavy growth” two cleanings in a row. you may want to consider increasing the frequency of your cleanings or try taking the boat at more if you have ablative paint.

You diver should haver a professional opinion on this. The diver may recommend monthly, biweekly or even weekly cleanings depending on factors that you may have no idea about. Sometimes (rare for most of South Florida), cleanings every 6 to 8 weeks is fine for some boats depending on the water. But these are all questions for the diver.

Most of these questions should be answered in a boat report that should come with every cleaning. Some smaller companies deliver this report in a more informal way of texting you or waiting to be asked about these things, while others deliver it without prompt, normally attached to the invoice.

Challenges to your diver

This includes

  • trash
  • floating dead animals
  • diesel
  • fertilizer run off
  • unknown chemicals

It’s unfortunate that all of these things are very common in marinas and waterways in South Florida. This bears remembering if ever you noticed your diver walk to your boat and after a small time on the dock turn around and drive away without ever getting in. Don’t worry, their not mad or scamming you. They may have just noticed too much pollution in the water at that time to do your boat. Nonetheless they may either check back later that day or return in a few days time depending on the pollution. Furthermore you can always call to confirm if you are curious.

ah yes. This is something a hull diver normally has to deal with often. This is normally delivered to them from either two sources;

  • jelly fish
  • stinging coral

More about Stinging coral: stinging coral seems to occur most often. It’s hard to identify them nor does it serve a great purpose to identify them because really, the diver is not employed to take scientific samples, but to remove the biofouling. To that end, the only difference that identifying sting coral  would make to a diver is that they would now have information that they will be stung up while doing their job. This is because there is almost no protecting against sting coral. Somehow, it passes through coverall garments and wetsuits and embeds in the skin for a few days. Also worth mentioning that, “stinging coral” is just catch-all term. If you hear this about your boat after someone was cleaning it, don’t worry, you do not have actually coral growing on your boat.

  • Bull Sharks
  • Alligators
  • Crocodiles
  • Lion Fish

This is something that divers need to work around constantly in south Florida. Especially in the warmer months. When lightening storms start rolling in, your diver should be coming out of the water. If your onboard or near your boat while your diver is under your boat and you notice a storm approaching, knock on your hull and get your divers attention to inform them.

If you’ve taken dockage for your boat behind a residential property that has a neglected dock to your observation, you should communicate that to your new diver or dive company. This is important to help avoid injury to the diver as they normally will walk to the boat from the truck with all their gear on. If you know of an area on the dock with soft wood or a loose plank(s), let them know.

Depending on the area, it can be said for many waterways in south Florida that underwater visibility is only a few feet if that. Keep this in mind if your asking a diver to do a search and recovery or inspection. It may take a little longer.

other boaters can present hazard to a diver under your boat by either hitting them with prop wash when leaving or coming in. Or by riding to close to your vessel when passing. A diver can normally hear these two occurrences from underwater and respond, but if you see something that seems unsafe, communication is the cheapest thing you can  employ to cover your bases.

While a diver can still work with either of these two things taking place, it’s up to the diver at what point the conditions have exceed their comfort zone.

These medical conditions often effect hull divers, evidently with some occurrences taking place one or twice a year.

a line that comes to mind when considering fear is from the movie: starship troopers. “are you scared? it’s ok to be scared… you’d have to be crazy not to be scared”.

Divers aren’t without fear and stress. Some boaters may allow themselves the opinion that hull cleaning or working in the water is an easy or fun thing. This can be true sometimes. But as professionals, divers are trained to preform their function when the water isn’t blue and when the dive is anything but fun.

Commercial diving in any of of it’s spectrum; offshore, inland, ships husbandry, can be very stressful at times.

Safety

aka, Don't hurt your diver

In recent history, and to the recollection of this author, most, if not all hull diver fatalities and / or injuries, were directly caused by…. boat operators.

That’s right. Hull divers share the waterways with some of the most aggressive species of carnivorous fish and reptile, yet human error prevails in this unfortunate way. In this section, we’ll go over some best practices for boat owners to follow to help them create and keep a more safe environment for their diver. Subsequently, this will also make for a better relationship between yourself and the dive company and diver.

Avoid electrocutions

A number of things can cause this. From wiring on the boat to running hardware store extension cords from the dock box or house to the boat. If you must an extension cord, try not to let it dip into the water.

hospital, emergency room, entrance-1636334.jpg

Avoid start-ups

While starts-ups are not by themselves lethal, when coupled with a boat being in gear when initiated, you essentially start to turn your boat propellers while there’s someone right next to them without warning.

this can include

  • putting a piece of tape or a post-it over the ignition
  • not boarding with your start up key
  • move the key away from where it’s normally kept. Even to another part of the boat.

 Often times, a boat operator has met the diver on the dock before they got in. Despite this recent meeting a few minutes ago, absent mindedly, they’ll reach for the key and start up the boat. Most divers have at least one story of this. Some can even be sensitive about the incidents, understandably. Helping to prevent this, moving the ignition key to a place other than where you normally leave it may prompt the question in your head “Why did I move the key” or “why isn’t the key where I normally have it”, to which the answer will remind you about the diver.

  • Avoid requesting bottom cleaning on the same day as a planned trip.
  • Avoid requesting bottom cleaning on the same day you are having maintenance performed. Especially to the motors. Mechanics can get so wrapped up in their process of diagnostic and repair that they may start the boat as a part of troubleshooting without giving a second thought.

Regardless whether the boat is on or off. The bow or stern thruster, the transom lift or the depth finder. Everything should remain off while a diver is under the boat. The result can be catastrophic.

In conclusion,

Hopefully this has given you some insight as to how to go about picking a dive company for your needs. As always, if you have any questions, give us a call or message.

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