ADAS Part 4 / Closed Bell Training

After a long and thorough international review, changes to the Part 4 / Closed Bell course and some of the pre-requisites took effect in April.

The review involved an extensive consultation period with members of the International Diving Regulators and Certifiers Forum (IDRCF) and industry to bring the existing competencies up to date and set international standards.  These changes will directly affect those who are considering undertaking ADAS Part 4 training in the future.

The changes identified are the result of the recognised need to have world-wide standards in place, which allows each training organisation to be sure their standards are on par with other international organisations.

As the chair of the review panel, ADAS Executive Director Rob Gatt had a great deal of input into the review and is pleased with the outcomes, one of the main ones being the ongoing world-wide acceptance of ADAS Part 4 certification holders and the synchronisation of our training with the other establishments around the world.

The main changes which will affect divers wanting to undertake Part 4 / Closed Bell training relate to the pre-requisites required.  These will increase from 50 logged dives totalling at least 50 hours, to 100 logged dives totalling at least 100 hours.  The review committee and industry agreed that industry feedback relating to a lack of air diving experience could be partly addressed through the increased pre-requisite time.

Course content has also undergone some changes with the new competencies reflecting the use of hyperbaric rescue systems and reclaim systems on the majority of saturation systems. Other competencies have also been updated to address other industry changes that have occurred since the last writing of the training guide.

It was a great achievement to come up with an accepted standard and work is currently underway to see if that can be extended to some of the other training programmes.