Prevention of emergencies commences 

 with the design stage of the submersible 

 system and continues throughout construc- 

 tion and fabrication by virtue of quality con- 

 trol and testing of materials, components 

 and systems. In essence, the builder at- 

 tempts to construct a submersible following 

 sound engineering principles and practices. 

 As shown in this chapter, there is no legal 

 requirement for the builder to adhere to any 

 particular guideline, but if he wishes to lease 

 to the U.S. Navy or other governmental 

 agencies the vehicle must meet standards 

 selected by these agencies. Prevention of ma- 

 terial failures, then, falls under the topic of 

 material certification and the various stand- 

 ards are presented later in this chapter. 



The operator of a private submersible need 

 only meet his employer's or his own training 

 and competency standards. These also are 

 dealt with later. It is sufficient to note that 

 sound engineering procedures and well-qual- 

 ified, knowledgeable operators are the main 

 ingredients of a safe diving program. 



A third category under prevention of emer- 

 gencies is Operational Safety — the process of 

 predetermining whether a proposed mission 

 is safe to undertake in the first place. Deter- 

 mining the risk factor in a proposed mission 

 involves weighing the vehicle's design and 

 capabilities against the nature of the job and 

 the conditions one can anticipate at the job 

 site. 



One approach to this determination can be 

 to take those Natural and Man-Made Haz- 

 ards listed above and consider the likelihood 

 of their occurring or hindering the submers- 

 ible's operation. Such an approach involves 

 thorough research into the literature con- 

 cerning the candidate dive site. Having de- 

 termined what the environment holds in 

 store, one may then evaluate whether or not 

 the vehicle can safely contend with these 

 conditions. Unfortunately, this procedure is 

 not quite so simple, because, though a great 

 deal is known of the world oceans, it soon 

 reduces to generalities and a submersible 

 does not dive generally, it dives specifically. 



While many difficulties lay in the path of 

 gathering operational safety information, 

 the results, no matter how meager, do pro- 

 vide some indication of what may be ex- 

 pected and may identify areas of investiga- 



tion which the mission planners did not con- 

 sider. 



The final judgement on what is or is not a 

 safe operational practice can be debatable. 

 Generally the operations officer and the op- 

 erator have sufficient experience and sea- 

 manship ability to provide expert opinion 

 which the user follows. On the other hand, 

 there are no time-honored principles in sub- 

 mersible diving as there are with military 

 submarines, although some military operat- 

 ing procedures can be applied. What might 

 be considered a foolish procedure for one 

 submersible, may be entirely safe for an- 

 other. It is not difficult to foresee where the 

 present work of inspecting of oil well heads, 

 pipelines and associated equipment will lead 

 submersibles into conditions as potentially 

 hazardous as a scuttled ship. And, being 

 quite practical, if that's where the money is 

 the submersible owner faces two options: Do 

 the job or go out of business. Hence, judging 

 the safety or risk of a particular task is 

 accompanied by economic considerations 

 which may prompt the commercial user to 

 attempt a maneuver the scientific user feels 

 too risky. 



U.S. NAVY CERTIFICATION 



The U.S. Navy defines a manned submers- 

 ible as ". . . any ship, vessel, capsule or 

 craft capable of operating underwater with 

 or without propulsion, on and under the 

 surface of the water with the operator(s) 

 and/or passengers embarked in a dry habi- 

 tat and which by its design is incapable of 

 defensive or offensive action in combat" 

 (Secretary of the Navy Instruction 9290.1A). 

 This definition includes habitats such as 

 SEALAB, rescue chambers of the McCann 

 type and tethered and untethered manned 

 submersibles, both military and non-mili- 

 tary. Provisions of this instruction allow mil- 

 itary or civilian naval personnel with proper 

 authority to dive in a non-certified vehicle on 

 an occasional or one-time basis for specified 

 purposes of indoctrination, evaluation or re- 

 search. A vehicle can remain uncertified and 

 still operate under Navy contract as long as 

 naval personnel (military or civilian) do not 

 dive in it. 



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