British Sub Aqua Club
|
|
The British Sub-Aqua Club or BSAC is the governing body of recreational diving in Britain.
The club was founded in 1953 and has over 50,000 members. It is a diver training organization that operates through its associated network of around 1600 local, independent diving clubs and around 400 diving schools worldwide.
BSAC is unusual for a diver training agency in that most BSAC instructors are amateurs operating in diving clubs as opposed to professionals operating in diving schools.
Given that UK waters are relatively cold and have restricted visibility, BSAC training is more comprehensive than some. Specifically it places emphasis on rescue training very early in the programme. This has led to the SAC in BSAC being jokingly referred to as Slow And Careful. Compared to PADI (Pay and Dive Instantly), this is probably true: it will take longer for a new diver to be swimming in open water but given the conditions this is probably sensible.
Qualifications
BSAC currently has five diver qualification. These are:
- Ocean Diver - Basic skills, non-decompression diving (depth limit 20m)
- Sports Diver - Rescue and decompression diving (depth limit 35m)
- Dive Leader - Dive leading, marshalling and rescue management (depth limit 50m)
- Advanced Diver - Fully trained diver capable of leading a group of divers in normal club activities.
- First Class Diver - Trained to lead a group of dives carrying out a project. This is nationally examined with a two day pratical test.
BSAC has several instructor qualifications:
- Assistant Instructor - Trained but unqualifed. Must be supervised when instructing.
- Theory Instructor - Qualified to instruct unsupervised in the classroom.
- Practical Instructor - Qualified to instruct unsupervised in open water.
- Open Water Instructor - Qualified to supervise other instructors in classroom and open water training
- Advanced Instructor - Trained to teach advanced skills such as instructor training, boat based skills and group diving techniques.
- National Instructor - Leads Instructor Training courses and BSAC National exams.
External links
- British Sub-Aqua Club (http://www.bsac.org)
- Dacorum Sub-Aqua Club (http://www.dacorumsac.org.uk)
- Old Harbour Dive School (http://www.oldharbourdiveschool.co.uk)
- Kingston & Elmbridge BSAC (http://www.kingstonbsac.co.uk)
- Lincoln and District BSAC (http://www.lincoln109.co.uk)
- West Norfolk Sub-Aqua Club (http://www.wnsac.co.uk)