Special Operations.Com
ROYAL
NAVY DIVERS
The Royal
Navy today has two types of divers: Ship's Divers
who in addition to their normal duties, and members
of the Diving Branch, who are full-time divers. HMS
Vernon at Portsmouth is the centre for diving; the
SAS and Royal Engineers do some of their diving training
here too.
Ship's Divers
Officers and
ratings from all branches may apply. Members of the
RN who volunteer as Ship's Divers will undergo a one-day
aptitude test, concentrating on swimming ability and
suitability for diving. Those selected go on the four-week
course itself, mainly basic compressed air ( open-circuit
) diving. There is also instruction in working on
ship's hulls, searching for explosives, decompression
chambers and maintenance of diving equipment. On completion,
the diver will return to his ship or shore establishment
but will dive as often as possible. 120 minutes underwater
time each four- month period is required to keep the
qualification. Later in their careers some Ship's
Divers serve in a search and rescue helicopter crew
as a full-time diver.
Diving Branch
Recruits for
this sub-branch of the Seaman Operations Branch are
taken from seamen just out of Part II
initial training at HMS Raleigh, Plymouth,
as well as Ship's Divers who wish to transfer. The
aptitude tests are far more stringent and last five
days, including physical work, written tests and interviews.
Success at this stage leads to the fourteen-week course
at Vernon and other locations.
The first
five weeks, at Horsea Lake, cover compressed air and
then closed-circuit diving. Underwater navigation
and endurance swimming are learned too. The next week,
back at the Portsmouth docks, introduces divers to
the nitrox breathing mixture, ship's bottom searches
and harbour searches. From there they go to Portland
for two weeks, doing seabed searches in deeper water,
diving down to 55m ( 180 feet).
Two weeks
of tool-training, such as propeller and dome changes
and underwater cutting, are the last underwater, for
the last two are spent on land at the Defence Explosive
Ordnance Disposal School.
The
newly-qualified diver will join one of the five Bomb
and Mine Disposal Teams covering Britain's naval bases,
or a Mine Hunting Team aboard an RN minehunting vessel.
Promotion to Leading Diver requires a further sixteen
weeks training, following which there may be a posting
to the Fleet BMD Team , which operates worldwide,
the specialist Deep Diving Team or the Experimental
Diving Unit, all at Vernon.
