DATELINE: 29th June 2001

NO CLAMPDOWN
Orkney diving charter-boat skippers have stopped short of implementing a code of conduct to counter wrecking activities by chartering divers.
Divernet has previously reported that a possible code, which might ban carrying crowbars on vessels, was to be discussed at the Orkney Dive Boat Operators Association's AGM.
The Orkney charter boat community is small and comprises 11 skippers, of whom eight belong to the association. In the event, the skippers agreed loosely to "discourage" wrecking.
"We agreed that we should make attempts to educate divers on the need to preserve wrecks for the sake of the sport, and indeed our own long-term business," Chairman Steve Mowat told Divernet. "We agreed to back an educational poster campaign, for which discussions over local council funding are taking place."
What about crowbars on charter boats? "We agreed to discourage that." Would crowbar-carrying divers be turned away? "Well it's difficult, because you can't go round searching people's bags as they come aboard." Might a skipper refuse to allow diving if crowbars or lifting bags came out on deck as divers kitted up? "That's a sensitive issue. I'd like to be able to say that skippers would take action, but in practice some may not, because they would lose business."
Many British skippers are known to feel that, while supporting wreck conservation, they should not be expected to police divers, who should be responsible for their own actions.
But according to Mowat, wrecking questions are becoming increasingly academic, at least in his part of the country.
Suggesting that the current climate of debate over issues such as war graves might be shifting sport-diving culture, he said: "Diving around here has changed a lot in a short space of time. These days we get more family and other types of diving groups who are clearly more conservation-minded.
"They don't look like wreckies - they really don't."

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