Final class 50 metres below

It’s one of the top diving schools in the world yet has one of the lowest profiles of any export company in the country. Energy NZ visits the New Zealand School of Commercial Diver Training in Huntly on the last training day for nine students on its stage three course.  By Alan Titchall.

The diving barge looks small and cluttered and I apologise for getting in the way, but I am assured it can handle a lot more people. It’s the last day of the full diving course and on board there’s three staff and nine students with a range of diving tasks to complete. They industriously check over their gear like old veterans.

“We shouldn’t be teaching you anything at this stage, it should be all routine,” they are told during their pre-dive briefing. 

“After today, most of you will be working on real diving rigs in real working conditions, you should be ready by now.”

We are moored in the middle of a small lake in Weaver’s Park created from an opencast coal pit in Huntly that closed over a decade ago. With the environmental rehabilitation that goes into the quarrying and mining industry these days, you would never know this scenic recreational park and its very deep lake (64 metres) was once a gaping coal pit.

The students have spent 12 weeks deep-diving from the barge and have already completed stage one and stage two of the ADAS accredited full course with the New Zealand School of

Commercial Diver Training (the only such school in this country training in underwater construction trades). Three quarters of them will graduate after today with their stage three qualification and head off to high paying jobs using hydraulic tools deep under the surface.

“Most of our students are Kiwis,” says supervisor Richie Haagh. “Others have come from all over the world to complete the stage three course which is designed for the off-shore oil industry, and many of them will end up working on rigs around the world.”

After graduating they work on-shore around the country to gain practical experience before heading off overseas. It doesn’t take long for them to recoup the cost (around $6500) of the complete course. 

“It’s almost a 100 percent work placement within two to three weeks of finishing the course.”

When I comment on the youthfulness of the students Haagh agrees this lot is a little younger than the norm – between 18 and 21 years, when the average age is between 23 and 25 years, and coming from a mixture of trades and professions, from plumbers to engineers. Nationalities in this group include an American, an Australian and a Malaysian. There are no females. “It’s still a very male dominated industry,” Haagh concedes, but a number of women do the stage one course.

On board there’s a lot of noise and activity – the chugging of compressors and clunk of metal on metal. They have already been assigned their initial tasks and are beavering over the gear and equipment under their charge for the first dive.

The steel barge is a small but exact working replica of the ones used in the field and accommodates up to 18 students and five staff. A working barge will typically have 18 divers, six surface crew, a crane operator, a supervisor and a decompression chamber operator.

“There can be up to 35 in a working environment, so you do have to get used to working in crowded space and keeping your area tidy and clean,” says Haagh as my camera pack accidentally rubs off whiteboard notes on the day’s pre-dive briefing.

Students dive in pairs, sometimes three or four at a time, using a wet diving bell and platform on the end of a steel cable. Four can work around the bell – two inside and two on the outside. On this, their final day, most of them have got hydraulic drilling tasks to complete – drilling holes in steel plate at 50 metres. Over the course they are taught to work with hydraulic-powered tools to also cut, weld and even chainsaw at this depth. The lake water is clear but extremely cold and very dark, darker than the ocean would be.

A decompression chamber onboard is used by level three divers to decompress on the surface, frees up diving time facilities and provides more comfort than hanging around in the water. Depending on the depth and length of the dive, they can stay in the chamber for up to an hour, and with no entertainment. “We have nothing flammable in their for safety reason, but on a working rig they will have magazines, books, and games.”

Equipment is state of the art with divers elaborately kitted out in hot water suits where heated water is pumped through tubing in the suit at 20 litres a minutes, keeping them as warm as toast.

Divers are helped into their suits by non-diving colleagues. The most difficult part is fitting the full helmet that contains a lot of brass (doesn’t corrode in salt water) and weighs almost 10 kilograms. It’s not the most comfortable piece of equipment to have sitting on your shoulders but it provides excellent head protection when working with cranes and chainsaws under water, and keeps heads dry when working in contaminated water. The helmet features a sophisticated communication system linked to the operations room and a supervisor who is in full control of the diving. Voice data is recorded.

Although divers are trained to sort out emergencies with their diving buddies, a staff member kits up in a dry suit and is on standby in case of an accident. Today it’s Haagh’s turn to be the standby diver and he takes up a seat outside the decompression chamber to wait out a long day.

The two other staff are ex-New Zealand Navy divers, but Haagh did his training with the school before doing a stint offshore South Australia on ‘tuna tows’ – a fishing industry practice of rounding up live tuna to farm onshore, fattening up the fish to get better weights. 

South Australian waters are infamous for their great white sharks, one of the few conditions the diving school can’t simulate in the lake. 

“Tuna tows have a lot of problems with sharks getting into the nets,” Haagh says casually. “Your first and second encounter is scary, but you get used to them.”

The lake does have some very large resident eels and koi carp, he adds.

The operation was set up four year ago on the lake after operating out in the ocean near Auckland. 

“The beauty of the lake is that it is all weather operation. Even if it gets really windy we can still dive because there’s no swell,” Haagh says.

A day’s training can involve a 12-hour stint on the barge. “They will be working 12 hour shifts in either a 6am to 6pm, or 12am to 12pm, rotation in the field, so they have to get used to it,” says Haagh.

Students huddle around one of the staff in front of the blackboard listing basic procedures for the final dives.

“All this should just be procedural stuff that you know inside and out by now,” they are told. There’s a lighter note with a reference to some “jelly bum” (me) who has rubbed out some of the whiteboard, and the students are reminded why it is important to keep a tidy shop.

The last briefing also includes some stern messages reflecting why these divers earn their money.

“The hand stabilising the work when using hydraulic rotating machinery must not be gloved. The hand pulling the trigger can, but if a drill bit catches the glove on the stabilising hand it will twist it off and take all your fingers with it. If the bit catches part of your naked hand it will only rip that part,” they are told deadpan.

“Just one last thing,” interjects Haagh before the students get down to action. “On the last day students have been known to try and get the standby diver in the water for the fun of it. At the depths we are diving today – once the standby diver goes in, that will be it and we’ll have to pack up because we can’t dive with a decompression commitment – so keep it nice and sensible.”

There’s a burst of laughter when another staff members quips, “So what he’s saying is that you should wait for the last dive.”

Around a third of these students won’t pass – either through missing some of the course or not passing the written exams that follow the practical. They will have the chance to rejoin another course within a limited period of time and catch up.

Failure is not on their minds today and they handle their tasks with a combination of confidence and ‘end-of-the-course’ cheer.

Haagh sits and stares at them impassively with the trained patience of someone who knows the chances of getting into the water today is very unlikely, and it will be a long vigil. The next course is already in his view and within days he will be greeting 24 fresh students who will train in two groups through the winter months, when the water will be much colder.

“Courses need to be back-to-back to cope with worldwide demand for divers,” he says.