THE REBREATHER EDUCATION & SAFETY ASSOCIATION

The recreational rebreather diving industry, as we know it, started a number of years ago with the Draeger Atlantis. Since then many new units and courses have been created.

As with any new technology, systems for training were put in place when the first rebreathers were introduced to the market. When new rebreather companies started producing rebreathers, courses were developed for these units also.

Years went by, and we saw the industry grow and change. Rebreathers went from being a tool that only extreme divers used, to an acceptable tool for technical divers and then a tool for recreational divers.

During this time, rebreather manufacturers learned and grew with the industry. New technology was invented, old technology was perfected and endless research was done to make better units: some are smarter, others simpler, some lighter and others heavier, some streamlined and others complex.

While technology was being developed and changed, there was never a time that the manufacturers sat down together to discuss where the future of our industry was going. Subjects such as third party testing, acceptable test parameters, what tests should be done, quality assurance standards, what consists of a proper QA program, what are the appropriate standards that we should be testing to, appropriate third party testing companies had not been discussed collectively by the manufacturers.

These are some important subjects and we haven’t even gotten to training yet. So let’s talk about training.

At the start, programs were developed for the first units on the market. We can only imagine the challenges of writing these first programs. They likely merged knowledge from military, commercial and recreational diving programs.

Some units were sold with no training at all. Those wanting to buy them had to convince the owner of that company that they were qualified.

As time passed, courses were written for most of the rebreathers in the market place. This was either training agencies writing programs and asking manufacturers for approval or manufacturers writing programs and submitting them to agencies for teaching. While this works, there is certainly room for improvement.

How much better, safer and more educational can our training courses be if we as manufacturers work together on some key issues?

We could require published minimum training standards. If we all publish our minimum training standards, then every rebreather student will have an expectation on what will be taught in the class. If sections are skipped, the student will know that they aren’t being provided with a full program.

We could improve the sharing of information from training agencies to manufacturers and then to other training agencies.

These are some pretty heavy subjects. And frankly technical rebreather divers are generally strong minded people. We manufacturers are no different. Maybe we are even worse than the rest of you.

So how do strong minded competitors work through some of these issues? Well, you have enough courage to form a corporation called RESA to get started. You have to say your piece to the group and also to listen closely and give due respect to consider opinions that may not be similar to your own. Then you convince other key entities in the industry that you need and want their input and that you would like them to join RESA as well, so they can be part of the process. And once you’ve done all that, the fun and work really starts.

This is where we are at today. We’ve incorporated RESA, we’ve written the bylaws, the budget has been determined, we know the subjects that we wish to start discussions on.

Our members have a common goal of improving the safety record of rebreather divers by a substantial margin. This will require industry wide cooperation and RESA member manufacturers are committed to working together as are the training agencies.