Underwater work

Underwater work is work done underwater, generally by divers during diving operations, but includes work done underwater by remotely operated vehicles and manned submersibles.

Skills commonly used by all professional diving occupations

Underwater navigation

Main article: Diver navigation

• Pilotage
• Compass navigation
• Use of a guideline or jackstay

Underwater searches

Main article: Underwater searches

• Circular search
• Pendulum search
• Jackstay searches
• Compass searches
• Directed search

Rigging and lifting

• Basic ropework, knots and splices, tackle
• Rigging slings cargo nets and spreaders, lifting hooks and shackles
• Lifting bags
• Chain blocks, tirfors and pullers

Inspection, measuring and recording

• Underwater photography – Genre of photography
• Underwater videography – The branch of electronic underwater photography concerned with capturing moving images

Use of basic hand tools

• Hacksaws
• Hammers
• Cold chisels
• Pliers
• levers, wedges and crowbars
• Screwdrivers and wrenches
• Pipecutters and bolt cutters

Skills specific to specialist occupations

Underwater oxy-arc cutting

Underwater fillet weld in a training pool

• Erecting formwork and shuttering (civils)
• Concrete placement using a tremie or skip (civils)
• Oxy-arc cutting (salvage, ships husbandry, offshore)
• Underwater welding (salvage, ships husbandry, offshore)
• Use of pneumatic and hydraulic power tools {ships husbandry, civils, offshore, salvage}
• High pressure jetting (ships husbandry, civils, offshore)
• Hydraulic bolt-tensioning (offshore oil and gas)
• Fitting and maintenance of wellhead components (offshore oil and gas)
• Hull cleaning and inspection (ships husbandry)
• Mooring inspection and maintenance (ships husbandry, offshore)
• Pipeline inspection (offshore oil and gas)
• Propeller polishing (ships husbandry)
• Inspection and replacement of cathodic protection anodes (ships husbandry, offshore)
• Explosive demolition (clearance, civils)
• Bomb disposal (military, public safety)
• Archaeological excavation (archaeology)
• Search and recovery (public safety)
• Forensic evidence preservation (police)
• Search and rescue (public safety, police)
• Site surveys and mapping (scientific, archaeology)
• Biological sampling and tagging (scientific)
• Core drilling (scientific)
• Setting up and recovery of instrumentation (scientific)
• Transect surveys (scientific)

Gallery

• 
  Underwater construction training
• 
  Industrial inspection
• 
  Inspecting a thruster grating
• 
  Core-drilling coral
• 
  Lifting bags
• 
  Placing concrete underwater
• 
  Inspecting an intake grating
• 
  ROV working on a subsea structure
• 
  Salvage work
• 
  Ultrasonic testing
• 
  Rigging
• 
  Hull scrubbing
• 
  Removing a small propeller
• 
  Removing sediment with a suction pump
• 
  Filling a lift bag

References