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Marina Divers
How to Get Your Money's WorthTrixiePixGraphics, Copyright 1985, 1995 by Trixiepixgraphics
Sold to "Great Lakes Boating"
Owning a non-trailerable boat means that sooner or later you'll have to hire a diver to work on it below the waterline. It may be a hull scrubbing or a propeller swap or a zinc installation. It could even be a shaft replacement, or in-water thru-hull fitting change or the upgrading of depth sounder transducers. Maybe you've hit something and merely want to know the extent of the damage. The point is that something will need doing when the lift or weighs is not available.Sometimes it makes financial sense to hire a diver even when the lift IS available.Sometimes even a trailerable boat, far from its trailer, will require the services of a local diver.But how do you know you're getting your money's worth out of a diver you pick mostly at random from one of dozens of business cards on the bulletin board at the local marina? Too often you don't know. And too often you don't get your money's worth. But it will help to understand how so many divers came to be available to us in the first place.The SCUBA schools and a few commercial diver training institutes have continued to crank out divers by the thousands, a good many of which decided they had what it took to dive for a living around the local boat havens.In most cases, however, the SCUBA divers did not have what it took. They lacked training, equipment, experience and drive. They also did not like to work under unpleasant or dangerous conditions-- something that is often required when getting paid to dive.I have seen collections of literally thousands of different business cards, all purporting to be "the answer to all your diving needs". Not one in one hundred of those new hopefuls lasts a year. The odds of a particular diver being around in two years is about one in one thousand.Even the up-coming industrial divers, trained and duly accredited, found steady employment scarce in the overseas oil fields or in the Gulf, and many of those newly graduated commercial diving students also threw their thirty dollar business cards up on the bulletin boards with all the rest, hoping to establish a business for themselves in local, maintenance type marina diving. The trouble is, most of the commercially trained divers didn't have what it takes either. Consequently, the marinas fall victim to a continual turn-over of often poorly trained and inexperienced divers. Many will do shoddy work at low rates, and then not be around the following month or year when the shortcomings of their craftsmanship begin to surface.They work at low rates because they can’t get work at good rates.They do shoddy work because they either don’t know any better, or don’t care.They disappear because they finally have to go make a living doing something else. And new divers continue to come along to replace them, because each and every one thinks THEY are the ones who can make it pay. It's a vicious circle: So many people want to be "commercial" divers that they will dive for nothing, just to say they ARE divers-- which has the effect of leaching away the profits a few serious and competent divers might otherwise enjoy. It's called free enterprise, which in most cases is an admirable system. But in this instance, we have to wonder if it is the best system for all concerned.The detriment to the diver is that the diver himself is cheated out of the possibility of making a decent living, which means that he cannot always be available, but must be out seeking other types of work. It also means that he cannot afford the equipment necessary to properly do more jobs.The disadvantage to the boat owner is that although he has a wide range of divers and pretty, artistic, pastel business cards to choose from, chances are high that few of those divers are equipped and experienced to give him the best (or even acceptable) service. It becomes a situation of the blind leading the blind.It's been said that a diver is only an elevator operator. His training has taught him to go up and down in the water, and to usually stay alive at least at that.But does it mean he automatically knows how to set your maxi-prop, despite his arrogant claims that he is an "expert"?Or does it mean that he knows the slightest thing about scrubbing your bottom without scrubbing off your bottom paint?Does it mean that he'll only scrub the parts you can see from the dock?Does it mean he can even install a zinc anode properly, making sure it's mechanically grounded, and will stay grounded, or that your boat is not "over-zinced"? In a great many cases-- perhaps even the majority of cases, it does not, and you'll end up paying more during your annual or biannual haul-out, due to the mistakes made by a diver hired at random off the dock. After all, just because you have figured out how to get to the hospital-- doesn't mean you are automatically qualified to deliver a baby or perform brain surgery. Similarly, too many divers are only qualified to run the elevator.A diver referred to you by a friend may lessen the odds of accidentally picking a loser. But not necessarily. How does your friend know the man does good work? If he checked the diver's work eight months later during a scheduled haul-out and found that it had been satisfactory, that's worth some points. If, however, the diver comes recommended to you because he "seemed like a real nice guy" (and only charged $20), that may not be convincing enough.If a diver has been in business in your immediate area for at least two years, that means something. It means, at least, that no one has sued him out of business (yet), and that he is finding enough referrals to keep busy, and therefore probably has at least some experience under his belt.But beware: If your prospective diver quotes a long list of completed training courses, that doesn't automatically mean anything either. SCUBA divers often take "advanced" courses in sport diving, which have fancy names which lead you (and them) to believe that they must really be professional. I remember once being told that in a particular area there lived no less than fourteen (14) "Master Divers". I was impressed, but perplexed. A Navy man who has attained the level of Master Diver is something of a rare bird. My company's number one diver was a Master Diver, and he had been hard to find. How then, could there be fourteen such men living in one small community? But the sport diver who told me this finally got his facts straight--- he was inadvertently referring to Master SCUBA divers, which is a recreational designation having nothing to do with the Navy rank, and is light years from that level of expertise.Also, many commercial training institutes turn out very poorly trained divers indeed. Only about 10% of my company's working divers showed commercial training on their resumes, for instance, meaning that we almost grew to avoid commercially trained people, preferring to hire, instead, "blank chips", training them ourselves to our own specifications, which left them capable of actually doing something once they got underwater. Even then, training cannot take the place of common sense or mechanical aptitude. Most people don't realize that diving in and of itself is the easy part-- you must also accomplish the work once you're down there.Often a clue can be gleaned as to the diver's expertise in simply watching him get into his gear there on the dock. If there is really any fumbling at all, chances are he's not overly familiar with his own equipment. If that's the case, do you want him underwater, where you can't see what he's doing, working on yours?If a diver uses only SCUBA bottles for an air supply, that's an indication that a problem in his competency COULD exist. SCUBA gear is not generally regarded in commercial diving circles to be a professional means of supporting one's self underwater. In some states, in some applications, it's even illegal. It is, after all, equipment of a sport grade and nature. Granted, some situations call for the mobility of SCUBA gear, as opposed to a surface-supplied helmet with communications and unlimited air from a topsides compressor. But if a man shows up in SCUBA gear to do any serious work on your boat-- and I mean almost anything more substantial than retrieving a dropped tool or your wife's prescription glasses, chances are he is not really "into" the profession, and a small bell should go off in the back of your cranial cavity. It shouldn't as yet provoke you to fire the man-- but it should be an "indicator" of possible trouble, to be added up with other indicators, should they appear.It's of some use to ask if the diver has an insurance policy covering the liability of his work. It's a recent ploy of many major marinas to require a diver who even retrieves lost glasses in the facility to carry a liability policy. The marinas are just protecting themselves in this age of sue-happy yuppies. Such coverage can cost the diver from $1500 to $3500 a year (more if he runs boats and engages in other activities). Of course anyone can buy a policy, so it's not an automatic guarantee of proficiency or worth by any stretch of the imagination. But the man who has it probably does alot of work in larger marinas; he is serious enough about his business to have needed the policy to fulfill the requirements of the marinas he dives in, if nothing else, and we must suppose that he earns enough at his craft to justify the expense of being insured. All that shows probable experience, and that means SOMETHING. It is another indicator. The man who cannot show you such a policy might be just as competent as the man who can-- but if you had a choice, which diver would YOU hire?If a diver shows up to do a job, he should have ALL the tools necessary, on hand and on the dock. If he must exit the water more than once to go fetch some additional tool or device, it's another indicator that he didn’t come prepared to do the job, doesn’t know what the job entails, and may not be able to ultimately pull it off at all.C-Mar Industrial Diving has always charged a one hour minimum. This is to cover the cost of transportation, the time it takes to wriggle in and out of one's gear, routine wear and tear on that gear, and so forth. The customer must remember that while the retrieval of a pair of glasses off the fuel dock only took four minutes to accomplish, behind the scenes the diver will have an hour or more invested. Many divers will offer to charge one amount if they find your lost object, and another, lower rate, if they don't. Some divers charge a lower rate for all hours after the first. If the diver you hire is not local, he may charge travel time in addition to a higher first-hour rate.Some divers may try to charge as much as $90 an hour for routine zinc installations, propeller changes and the like. All will charge their regular rate plus the cost of materials. Some newly certified SCUBA divers may do anything you want for a ten dollar bill. Generally, however, a man who prices himself near, but not at, the upper end of the scale, is a diver who does not wish to gouge, yet is not so desperate for work that he will work for ten dollars---or nothing.Most divers will charge extra for night or after-business-hours work. C-Mar never did-- preferring to represent ourselves as professionals who were not hindered or intimidated by darkness or adverse conditions. Still, most will charge a higher rate for work in hard currents, or zero visibility.Many yachtsmen these days are getting together with friends or perhaps the tenants of their whole dock, and bargaining with a diver or diving company for a lower "group rate", and this works well for all parties.Another new angle is that of "scheduled maintenance", wherein a small business offers to take care of all maintenance of the vessel above the water line and/or below, and merely send the owner a bill at intervals. This generally produces somewhat lower diving charges.If there is no question of the position or location of an item lost overboard (or of your entire boat, for that matter), the diver should be willing to work on a "No Cure--No Pay" basis. In other words, if he is unable to retrieve the object or vessel, he should not charge you for the attempt unless the circumstances of his failure are very unusual. Conversely, if a diver completes a given task but is required to use more equipment than just his diving gear (i.e. pumps, air bags, secondary compressors), he will charge extra for that equipment. Be sure the rates and prices are agreed upon before hand. For any job larger than a hull scrubbing, a contract should definitely be signed by diver and customer. The customer must also realize that each dive is a separate and individual piece of work. If you pay a diver to remove your prop-- and you then drive across town and get it straightened, don't expect that diver to re-install it for you unless you pay him for a second dive. This seems like just common sense---but many customers don’t understand some of these basic notions.And lastly, the customer must understand that he is paying the diver to do the job. The customer is not obligated to help in any way, though he usually may if he desires. But you wouldn't pitch in and help your local mechanic repair your car, would you? ---Not at the rates mechanics charge!Today's boating scene offers many pitfalls for those who would walk blindly along and fall into them, especially when choosing an unknown man to perform work on your vessel, the quality of which may well mean life or death for you and your family.Forewarned, you're better off and money ahead.
